Techno-Economic Analysis of Zinc Borate Production from Zinc Oxide and Boric Acid

Year 2025, , 119 - 127, 15.01.2025

Selin Dinçer Fil , Fatma Burcu Alp , Mehmet Gönen

https://doi.org/10.34248/bsengineering.1569765

Cited By: 1

Abstract

The synthesis of zinc borate, 2ZnO.3B2O3.3.5H2O, was investigated via reaction of solid zinc oxide with boric acid aqueous phase in the existence on seed crystals. Commercially important type of zinc borate was synthesized using the 4.7 M boric acid concentration and B2O3 to ZnO molar ratio of 2 at 90°C, at 900 rpm and for 4 hours reaction time in a stainless-steel reactor. The amount of seed crystals was 1.5% of the boric acid initially used. At the end of each experiment, X-ray diffraction (XRD) instrument as well as Fourier-Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) instrument were carried out for identifying final products. A continuous process was developed with SuperPro Designer software. The design was derived from experimental and literature data. A techno-economic analysis of the zinc borate synthesis process was carried out for different annual plant capacities (6,000-12,000t). Unit prices of raw materials and final product were obtained from the literature and the market as USD600/ton boric acid, USD2,200/ton zinc oxide and USD4,500/ton zinc borate. The fixed investment cost of the zinc borate production plant with capacity of 10,000 ton/year was found to be USD22,780,000 and the operating cost was found to be USD26,273,000/yr. The payback time was determined as 1.93 years from the economic analysis of the process.

Keywords

Zinc borate, Economic analysis, SuperPro designer, Process development, Production cost

Ethical Statement

Ethics committee approval was not required for this study because of there was no study on animals or humans.

Thanks

Authors would like to thank Eti Mine Inc. for their support in providing boric acid used as raw material and zinc borate used as seed in the experimental study.

References

• Baltacı B. 2010. Synthesis and characterization of nano zinc borate and its usage as a flame retardant for polymers. MSc thesis, Middle East Technical University, Department of Chemical Engineering, Ankara, Türkiye, pp: 2.
• Bardakçı, M. 2009. Determination of zinc borate production methods and investigation of kinetics. MSc thesis, Yıldız Technical University, Institute of Science and Technology, İstanbul, Türkiye, pp: 63.
• Cui Y, Liu X, Tian Y, Ding N. 2012. Controllable synthesis of three kinds of zinc borates and flame retardant properties in polyurethane foam. Colloids Surf. A Physicochem Eng Asp, 414: 274-280.
• Çakal G. Ö, Baltacı B, Bayram G, Özkar S, Eroğlu I. 2020. Synthesis of zinc borate using water soluble additives: kinetics and product characterization. J Cryst Growth, 533: 125461.
• Eltepe HE, Balköse D, and Ülkü S. 2007. Effect of temperature and time on zinc borate species formed from zinc oxide and boric acid in aqueous medium. Ind Eng Chem Res, 46(8): 2367-2371.
• Engin B, 2009. Çinko borat üretimi optimizasyonu. MSc thesis, Atatürk University, Institute of Science and Technology, Erzurum, Türkiye, pp: 20.
• Gönen M, Rodone D, Panda S. 2022. Techno-economic analysis of boric acid production from colemanite mineral and sulfuric acid. Miner. Process. Extr Metall Rev, 43: 402-410.
• Gönen M. 2009. Nanosized zinc borate production. PhD thesis, İzmir Institute of Technology, Engineering and Science, İzmir, Türkiye, pp: 74-81.
• Gönen M, Balköse D, Ülkü S. 2011. Supercritical ethanol drying of zinc borates of 2ZnO•3B2O3•3H2O and ZnO•B2O3•2H2O. J Supercrit Fluids, 59(0): 43-52.
• Jun L, Shuping X, Shiyang G. 1995. FT-IR and Raman spectroscopic study of hydrated borates. Spectrochim Acta-A:Mol Biomoll Spectrosc, 51A(4): 519-532.
• Kılınç M, Çakal GÖ, Yeşil S, Bayram G, Eroğlu İ, Özkar S. 2010. Scale-up synthesis of zinc borate from the reaction of zinc oxide and boric acid in aqueous medium. J Cryst Growth, 312(22): 3361-3366.
• Kwan TH, Hu Y, Lin CSK. 2018. Techno-economic analysis of a food waste valorisation process for lactic acid, lactide and poly(lactic acid) production. J Clean Prod, 181: 72-87.
• Mergen A, Ipek Y, Bolek H, Oksuz M. 2012. Production of nano zinc borate and its effect on pvc. J Eur Ceram, 32(9): 2001-2005.
• Peters M, Timmerhaus K, West, R. 2003. Plant Design and Economics for Chemical Engineers. Boston: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
• Rais A. 2021. Akdeniz Chemson increases zinc borate capacity. Addit Polym, 3: 1-10.
• Roskill IS. 2010. Boron: global industry markets and outlook. London: Roskill Information Services Limited, London, UK, 12th ed., pp: 223-224.
• Schubert DM, Alam F, Visi MZ, Knobler CB. 2003. Structural characterization and chemistry of the industrially important zinc Borate, Zn[B3O4(OH)3]. Chem Mater, 15(4): 866-871.
• Shete AV, Sawant SB, Pangarkar VG. 2004. Kinetics of fluid–solid reaction with an insoluble product: zinc borate by the reaction of boric acid and zinc oxide. J Chem Technol Biotechnol, 79(5): 526-532.
• Sawada H, Tatebe A, Sakao K. 2004. Zinc borate and production method and use thereof. US Patent No:6780913 B2, New York, USA.
• Ting C, Jian-Cheng D, Long-Shou, W. Fan, Y. Gang, F. 2008. Synthesis of a new net like nano zinc borate. Mater Lett, 62: 2057-2059.