Case Study: Hitachi Zosen achieves 18% cost reduction with Aspen Technology's Aspen Custom Modeler

Mid-Size EPC Reduces Cost of Innovative Ethanol Dehydration System By 18% with Aspen Custom Modeler

Hitachi Zosen Corporation, a Japan-based EPC that designs waste‑to‑energy, industrial and infrastructure projects, needed a zeolite membrane alternative to traditional ethanol dehydration to reach gasoline‑grade purity. To model this emerging Hitz Dehydration System (HDS), integrate it into a larger process, and evaluate costs early, Hitachi Zosen worked with Aspen Technology using Aspen Custom Modeler (ACM) and Aspen Process Economic Analyzer (APEA).

Aspen Technology delivered an ACM-based custom unit model with consistent physical properties and easier maintenance, and used APEA to capture capital and operating costs while integrating the HDS with the upstream distillation column. This allowed Hitachi Zosen to optimize inlet vapor composition and pressure, run dynamic studies, and select the most cost‑ and energy‑efficient design—reducing total system cost by 18% in the conceptual stage.

Hitachi Zosen

Masashi Okada

Senior Process Engineer