Short CV
Mirela Tsagkari (born 23/10/1987) obtained her Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering at National Technical University of Athens in 2012 (Grade: 7.8/10.0). During her studies, she worked as an intern in the Institute of Physical-Chemistry at NCSR Demokritos (Greece), where she gained experience in radio carbon (C14) dating. In 2011, she spent the summer working within the BAROID Drilling Fluids Laboratory at Halliburton in Muscat, Oman, where she became acquainted with the Oil&Gas Industry demands. Her master’s thesis (partially completed at the University of Surrey) focused on biorefinery economics with a special view on early stage, order-of-magnitude cost estimation methods. She continued working in this field for six months as part of the BIOCORE project, where she employed Aspen Process Economic Analyzer to provide extensive techno-economic analysis of the lignocellulosic-based biorefineries and their derivative processes involved in the project. From September 2013 until March 2014, she joined S&B Industrial Minerals as a Lab Engineer within the R&D Specialties Department in Athens, where she worked on the synthesis of a decision protocol for the rapid qualitative and quantitative evaluation of unknown bentonite samples. In April 2014, she moved to Lyon, France where she joined Arkema to continue her research in biorefinery cost engineering within the FP7 Marie Curie program “RENESENG”. Her research focus is turned into developing a new and accurate cost estimation method suitable for the biorefinery processes at the early stage of their conception.
Thesis title: “Methodology of rapid evaluation of CAPEX and OPEX of technologies under development. Integration of a preliminary LCA tool and of an objective function for most appropriate site locations identifications.”
Objective
Methodology of rapid Evaluation of CAPEX and OPEX of technologies under development. Integration of a preliminary LCA tool, and of an objective function for most appropriate site locations identifications. My thesis structure is already decided consisting of the synthesis of a new/improved cost method (with an integrated LCA/logistics tool) and the design of three novel patented ARKEMA bio-based case studies for verification purposes.
Current Status
Regarding my work progress I have already completed the literature research and I’ve proved the inadequacy of existing costing methods. I performed an extensive study on five established costing methods by selecting three biorefinery processes and found wide discrepancies among the results. I have already defined two methodologies for early stage capital cost estimation: the first is based on cost-capacity curves and cost prediction correlations combined with uncertainty and the second estimates the cost based on scoring of significant process steps. I’m in the middle of designing the first ARKEMA case study ‘’In planta transesterification of castor seeds for the production of methyl esters’’.
Future 6-months Plan
I’m confident I will have completed the development of the two capital cost methodologies and I will be working towards a shortcut for rapid OPEX estimation. I will be reviewing the LCA and logistic tools available literature, in order to find the most suitable for my methodology. I will be working towards the second ARKEMA process “Oxidative Cleavage of castor oil for the production of AA11 and AA12”. In September, I’m going to attend the ECCE10,ECAB3,EPIC5 to be held in Nice, France with two posters: ‘’Process simulation and economic evaluation of methyl ricinoleate via reactive crushing of castor seeds’’, as well as, ‘’Rapid capital estimation for biorefinery processes’’.
Secondments
June-August 2015: 3-month secondment at NTUA
March-April 2016: 2 month secondment at Imperial
June-August 2016: 3-month secondment at NTUA
November- December 2016: 2-month secondment at QUANTIS
Publications - Conferences
Workshops
1st RENESENG Workshop, Guildford, UK (28-29/04/2014)
1st RENESENG Biorefinery Training School, Delft, the Netherlands (3- 5/11/2014): I presented a poster with my results so far
2nd RENESENG Biorefinery Training School, Copenhagen, Denmark (27-31/05/2015): I gave a lecture on Cost estimation using Aspen Process Economic Analyzer
Conferences
1. 22d European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, Hamburg,Germany,23-26/06/2014: poster presentation entitled “Sustainable castor oilbased production through reactive seeds crushing”
2. 12th Euro Fed Lipid Congress, Montpellier, France, 15-17/09/2014: poster presentation (same topic as previous)
3. ICEC 2014 IX World Congress Reengineering Total Cost Management, Milan, Italy, 20-22/10/2014
4. PSE2015/ESCAPE25, Copenhague, Denmark, 31/05-04/06/2015
5. 10th Panhellenic Scientific Conference in Chemical Engineering, Patra, Greece, 04-06/06/2015: oral presentation entitled ‘’Cost models for biorefinery processes: A comparative review of heuristic techniques’’
Publications
Mirela Tsagkari, Jean-Luc Couturier, Antonis Kokossis, and Jean-Luc Dubois ChemSusChem, Early-Stage Capital Cost Estimation of Biorefinery, 2016
Mirela Tsagkari, Jean-Luc Couturier, Antonis Kokossis, and Jean-Luc Dubois, Early-Stage Capital Cost Estimation of Biorefinery Processes: A Comparative Study of Heuristic Techniques
Annex
Fellow
ESR 11.1 |
Host institution
ARKEMA - PhD enrolment: Y (Athens UNIV) |
Duration
36 months |
Start date
M6 |
| Project title : Methodology of rapid Evaluation of CAPEX and OPEX of technologies under development. Integration of a prelimilnary LCA tool, and of an objective function for most appropriate site locations identifications. Work packages : WP1, WP2, WP3, WP4, WP5, WP6. Supervisor name: Dr Jean-Luc DUBOIS (Arkema) or someone with the same level of expertise and /or experience. |
|
Objectives: Methodology of projects assessment, and CAPEX/OPEX evaluation
|
Tasks and methodology:
- Task 1 Scale-up technology and early-stage evaluation tools
- Task 2. Synthesis-enabled targets at process level
- Task 3 High-level planning and roadmapping.
- Task 4 LCA for process design, synthesis and integration
- Task 5 Plant based oil biorefinery
- Task 6 Global BioRefinery Costing Early Estimation tool
|
| Results: D6.3 : CAPEX modelisation tool for Biorefineries (M48) |
| Dissemination: The ESR will publish in appropriate journals and in due time. An objective is to communicate on case studies analyzed with the decision tools and CAPEX/OPEX and LCA/Logistic. Arkema plans to participate to the Book planned in the RENESENG project. |
Planned secondment:
- NTUA, 6 months, CAPEX evaluation methodology, from database of known plant CAPEX and flowsheets, compare CAPEX estimates from different methodology, to assess the most appropriate one
- Imperial, 2 Months, From selection of Biorefineries, integrate an objective function to determine the most appropriate locations for crop production, logistics
- Quantis, 2 Months, Integrate LCA data in case studies. Compare impact of locations EU countries, US, Brasil, Asia (selection of countries) for the same Biorefinery. Ranking of most interesting options.
|
Risk assessment :
Risk1: Integration of the final decision tool is relying on the availability of Logistic tool and LCA tool.
Risk2: CAPEX evaluation for new technologies is challenging. |
