**4. Conclusions**

According to the aim of this study, we developed conventional and advanced exergy and exergoeconomic analyses of a spray drying system of instant co ffee for the first time, using real operational data. The components of the system where analyzed individually. The advanced analysis was found to be useful for quantifying the flow costs in the process and also for identifying which components have the greatest potential for improvement in order to make the overall system more cost e ffective.

According to the analysis and discussion, the following conclusions were obtained:


Finally, based on the results obtained in this analysis, the following recommendations were made for the plant: It would be useful to reduce the exergetic destruction cost rate of the SD and the MHX, by performing a parametric study and implementing structural changes within an exergoeconomic optimization in order to obtain *fk* values as close to 50% as possible [48]. Further studies are necessary to analyze the interdependence of the SD and the rest of the system's components, in order to determine the percentage of avoidable costs that can be attributed to the irreversibilities of each component's operation.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, investigation and data curation, D.L.T.-C.; methodology, A.M.B.-M.; software and validation, formal analysis, D.L.T.-C. and A.M.B.-M.; writing—original draft preparation, D.L.T.-C.; writing—review and editing, A.M.B.-M.; supervision and project administration, A.L.-M. and A.M.B.-M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
