Techno-Economic Assessment and FP2O Technical–Economic Resilience Study of Peruvian Starch-Based Magnetized Hydrogels at Large Scale

We conducted a techno-economic feasibility study and assessed the FP2O resilience of an industrial plant producing magnetized hydrogels from Peruvian Amarilla Reyna potato starch. The process includes alkaline pretreatment, grafting with acrylic acid, crosslinking with N, N′-methylenebisacrylamide, and in situ magnetization via Fe3O4 coprecipitation. A total of 12 techno-economic and three financial indicators were analyzed. At the base scale, the total capital investment was 49.78 MMUSD, with raw materials accounting for 92.4% of costs. The economic analysis indicates a payback period of 2.13 years, an IRR of 34.52%, and an NPV of 25.38 MMUSD. The break-even point is at 4760.84 USD/t, with 32.15% capacity utilization, demonstrating operational flexibility to handle demand variations or planned shutdowns. Compared to published techno-economic assessments of lignin- and chitosan-based hydrogels, which involve total capital investments of 236–1248 MMUSD and payback periods in the 6–30-year range, this scheme requires less capital investment and a payback period three to ten times shorter, underscoring its economic competitiveness on an industrial scale.