A Technoeconomic Resilience and Exergy Analysis Approach for the Evaluation of a Vaccine Production Plant in North-East Colombia

Ángel Darío González-Delgado (), Janet B. García-Martínez and Andrés F. Barajas-Solano
Additional contact information
Ángel Darío González-Delgado: Nanomaterials and Computer Aided Process Engineering Research Group (NIPAC), Chemical Engineering Department, Universidad de Cartagena, Cartagena de Indias 130015, Colombia
Janet B. García-Martínez: Department of Environmental Sciences, Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander, Av. Gran Colombia No. 12E-96, Cúcuta 540003, Colombia
Andrés F. Barajas-Solano: Department of Environmental Sciences, Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander, Av. Gran Colombia No. 12E-96, Cúcuta 540003, Colombia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Influenza is an acute infection that can cause diabetes and heart and lung disease disorders. This illness affects more than 9 million people around the world. The best way to control the transmission of the virus is vaccination. Studies, performed in Santander, Colombia, have found the existence of this disease. Despite the above, there are no companies dedicated to producing influenza vaccines in Colombia. For the first time, exergetic analysis and technical-economic resilience are being performed as combined decision-making tools for the evaluation of an influenza vaccine production plant. The results of exergetic analysis showed that the global exergy efficiency of the process was estimated at 93%. The exergy of waste that resulted was 61.70 MJ/h. The most critical stage of the process is milling, representing 83% of the total destroyed exergy. On the other hand, the results of technoeconomic resilience showed that the break-even point capacity of the process is 2503.15 t/y, representing only 24% of the installed capacity of the plant. The analysis of the effect of raw materials cost on profits showed that the process only resists a rise of 4% in the cost of raw materials, and higher values show economic losses. A value of 215,500 USD/t establishes a critical point for the normalized variable operating costs because higher values do not provide a return on investment.

Keywords: exergetic analysis; technoeconomic resilience; influenza vaccines; exergy efficiency; break-even point (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/1/287/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/1/287/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2022:i:1:p:287-:d:1013754

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().