Conceptual Design Development of Coal-to-Methanol Process with Carbon Capture and Utilization

Siddig S. Khalafalla, Umer Zahid, Abdul Gani Abdul Jameel, Usama Ahmed, Feraih S. Alenazey and Chul-Jin Lee
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Siddig S. Khalafalla: Chemical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Umer Zahid: Chemical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Abdul Gani Abdul Jameel: Chemical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Usama Ahmed: Chemical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Feraih S. Alenazey: King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia
Chul-Jin Lee: School of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 06974, Korea

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-21

Abstract: Methanol is a clean fuel and an important feedstock for the petrochemical industry. Conventionally, the coal-to-methanol process generates a substantial amount of CO 2 emissions with a low yield of methanol. In this study, we propose the conceptual design development of coal-to-methanol process using captured CO 2 from the gasification plant by implying process intensification. The base case and three alternative designs have been developed using the Aspen Plus to analyze the process performance. The four designs have been compared in terms of their energy consumption, economics, methanol production rate, and carbon emissions while maintaining the gasifier operation conditions, sulfur content in the syngas, and stoichiometric number at the methanol synthesis reactor. Among the developed designs, the most feasible design requires an energy requirement and product cost of 21.9 GJ and $142.5 per ton of methanol product. The study also showed that the coal-to-methanol process assisted with external hydrogen from electrolysis plant for achieving higher production rates and low CO 2 emissions is currently not economical due to the high H 2 cost.

Keywords: methanol; carbon capture and utilization; coal gasification; economic analysis; process simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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