Economic and Environmental Performance of an Integrated CO₂ Refinery

Abstract

The consequences of global warming call for a shift to circular manufacturing practices. In this context, carbon capture and utilization (CCU) has become a promising alternative toward a low-emitting chemical sector. This study addresses for the first time the design of an integrated CO 2 refinery and compares it against the business-as-usual (BAU) counterpart. The refinery, which utilizes atmospheric CO 2 , comprises three synthesis steps and coproduces liquefied petroleum gas, olefins, aromatics, and methanol using technologies that were so far studied decoupled from each other, hence omitting their potential synergies. Our integrated assessment also considers two residual gas utilization (RGU) designs to enhance the refinery's efficiency. Our analysis shows that a centralized cluster with an Allam cycle for RGU can drastically reduce the global warming impact relative to the BAU (by ≈135%) while simultaneously improving impacts on human health, ecosystems, and resources, thereby avoiding burden-shifting toward human health previously observed in some CCU routes. These benefits emerge from (i) recycling CO 2 from the cycle, amounting to 11.2% of the total feedstock, thus requiring less capture capacity, and (ii) reducing the electricity use while increasing heating as a trade-off. The performance of the integrated refinery depends on the national grid, while its high cost relative to the BAU is due to the use of expensive electrolytic H 2 and atmospheric CO 2 feedstock. Overall, our work highlights the importance of integrating CCU technologies within chemical clusters to improve their economic and environmental performance further.

Economic and Environmental Competitiveness of Ethane-Based Technologies for Vinyl Chloride Synthesis

“…The high amounts of cooling in the 1-step route are a consequence of ethylene being produced as a byproduct and its subsequent separation from unreacted ethane and Cl 2 , which requires cryogenic distillation below −100 °C. The high electricity demand to operate the cryogenic cycle (0.83 kWh MW –1 cooling) , appreciably impacts the overall environmental performance of the route due to the heavy-fossil-fuel-reliant current electricity mix (0.33 kg­(CO 2 -eq) kW –1 ).…”

A Carbon Dioxide Refinery: The Core of a Sustainable Carbon-based Circular Economy

“…Even though increasing the configuration complexity will bring technical advantages, it will nonetheless impact the economy of the refinery. A simple configuration of a CO2 refinery has been recently economically and environmentally evaluated [640]. This configuration was defined following a bottom-up approach and includes methanol synthesis, from DAC-CO2 as feed, integrated to methanol-to-olefins (MTO) and methanol-to-aromatics (MTA).…”

Modified Cu–Zn–Al mixed oxide dual function materials enable reactive carbon capture to methanol

“…[2][3][4] To this end, a reactive carbon capture (RCC) process, where CO 2 capture and conversion are integrated in a stepwise approach in a single reactor (or a series of reactors), has been more recently investigated. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] A recent report highlights how this approach can eliminate the need for separate CO 2 desorption and downstream processes using methanol (MeOH) as a target product, thereby providing a route to reduced cost and reduced energy input. 10 A promising RCC technology platform is based on dual function materials (DFMs), which are solid-phase materials composed of sorbents and catalysts co-dispersed on the same high surface area carrier.…”