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.