Solar methanol by hybridizing natural gas chemical looping reforming with solar heat

Xiangyu Liu, Hui Hong, Hao Zhang, Yali Cao, Wanjun Qu and Hongguang Jin

Applied Energy, 2020, vol. 277, issue C, No S0306261920310333

Abstract: Liquid sunshine is a concept for converting solar energy into liquid fuel. Methanol is an attractive candidate as the liquid fuel due to the long-period experiences in large-industrial scale of methanol production. Solar driven chemical looping process is considered as a way to produce raw materials of methanol synthesis. To achieve the transformation from solar energy to the chemical energy of liquid fuel, an integrated system based on the solar-driven chemical looping process using methane for methanol production is proposed. During the chemical looping process, solar heat is absorbed by the reaction to convert methane into syngas with a reasonable hydrocarbon ratio. The syngas as raw materials would be sent into a two-tower tandem methanol synthesis sector. The obtained crude methanol would be rectified and stored as the product. A preliminary parameter analysis helps to get the optimal reaction conditions of the chemical looping process, as the reaction temperature of 600 °C, CH4-to-NiO ratio of 1.25 and H2O-to-CH4 ratio of 0.7. In addition, the system was simulated and the energy analysis and exergy analysis are examined. The results show that energy efficiency is about 62%, and exergy efficiency is about 65%. In addition, the stored chemical energy in methanol can be released by employing solar energy again. The solar heat at around 250 °C driven methanol cracking process can be further released and coupled with an internal combustion engine for power generation. The net solar to electricity efficiency is evaluated and reaches around 23%. In this study, by solar-driven natural gas chemical looping process coupled with methanol synthesis, we would expect to provide a new pathway for further development of liquid sunshine.

Keywords: Chemical looping process; Methanol production; Liquid sunshine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920310333
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:277:y:2020:i:c:s0306261920310333

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115521

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().