Energy Integration of a Hydrotreatment Process for Sustainable Biojet Fuel Production

Biojet fuel has been identified as the most promising alternative for sustainable development of the aviation sector. There are several processes for biojet fuel production, being the hydrotreating of vegetable oils the most attractive. Considering that one of the reactions in the process is exothermic, it is possible to use this energy to reduce the heating requirements and the environmental impact of the process. Therefore, in this work we propose the energy integration of the hydrotreating process to produce biojet fuel, considering Jatropha curcas as renewable raw material. Results show a decreasing in heating cooling services when energy integration is performed in the process; however, the investment costs are increased due to the equipment required to perform the integration. Therefore, the total annual costs of processes, with and without energy integration, are similar. Nevertheless, energy integration allows a reduction of 86% in the environmental impact of the process. The application of energy integration allows reducing the carbon footprint and increasing the sustainability of renewable aviation fuel.