LAUSR

Abstract It is presented a technical and economic analysis of ammonia borane confined in silica aerogel using carbon dioxide at subcritical conditions. The process was simulated in Aspen Plus software and an economic analysis was carried. The results showed that it is possible to produce 4795 kg/year of products with a total investment of 1.32 MUSD and a cost of manufacturing per mass of product of 183 USD/kg fixing the ageing time to 5 days. The results indicated that microparticles residence time is a restrictive factor of the process as it limits the number of process cycles in a year. According to new experiments, it is possible to reduce time from 5 days to 2 days. This implies the decrease in the cost of manufacturing to 87 USD/Kg with the same total initial investment and a rise in the annual productivity to almost 12 t/year.