Preliminary Plant Design and Economics for the Production of Activated Carbon from Coconut Shells

The main objective of this report was to present a preliminary design development and economics of a plant to manufacture activated carbon from coconut shells. Two uses of active carbon have been considered:- a. Its use in gas adsorption b. Using it in solution purification ‘ The process adopted for the manufacture is based on physical activation of a carbonized intermediate. The capital investment for the plant producing 14400 tons of activated carbon is about 39.3 million Tsh. The selling price was fixed at 22% above the production cost, coming to 2.10sh/kg. on the basis of the assumed selling price, the first year income was found to be around 30 million Tsh. The total production cost was about 25 million Tsh, the break oven point and the shut down point were found to be at 66% and 20% capacity respectively. The discounted cash flow rate of return of 15% and a payback period of 6 years are anticipated with the plant operating at full capacity. The economic advantages of this plant were considered to be:

1. The utilization of otherwise an idle resource
2. Its importance as import substitution plant in the view that activated carbon can replace some of the imported adsorbents used in the country.
3. As an export promoting project, foreign markets can be sought to dispose off the surplus as the country present demand is still low, though it is expected to rise with the expending chemical and other processing industries.