Economic assessment and process design to valorize citrus juice industry waste

Abstract This study examines a biorefinery in an orange‐juice processing plant that uses sweet orange peels to produce biofuel, food additives, and essential oils. The simulation was run in Aspen Plus v12.1 and scaled using a rigorous economic analysis model. The study proves that biorefinery processes can transform the orange juice industry's organic waste into valuable products. Specifically, the proposed plant can produce 12.2 tons of 99.8% w/w ethanol and 25.8 t h‐1 of pectin from a flow rate of 381.6 t h‐1 of wet biomass. Using a sensitivity analysis tool, the optimal conditions for limonene extraction were identified as a temperature of 90 °C and a pressure of 0.68 atm, resulting in a production rate of 5.9 t h‐1 (97% w/w), This achieved a limonene recovery of 99.6% w/w per dry mass of biomass. Finally, this study provides insights into the potential for sustainable resource use in the orange juice sector.