Economic evaluation and production process simulation of biodiesel production from waste cooking oil

Abstract Waste cooking oil (WCO) is a promising feedstock for producing biodiesel, which plays significant role in waste resource reusing and renewable energy production. It known that cost the main factor restricting large-scale production of biodiesel. Therefore, Life Cycle Cost (LCC) method was used to analyze economic feasibility biodiesel process from WCO. Our results show 1 ?t WCO 6291.56 RMB, 65.28% higher than diesel. The factors influencing further analyzed. Although has low commercial price, necessary pretreatment inevitable creates additional processing cost, since cannot be directly transesterification produce relatively high, accounting 15.60% total cost. Special management policy should implemented recycling technology advanced, order make more economically competitive. Aspen Plus software simulate WCO, simulated by two-step method. practicability simulation confirmed purity reaching 99.6 ?wt%. In simulation, parameters methanol rectification tower were optimized provide reliable benchmark industrial