Methanol Production from Solid Recovered Fuel and Lignite: Techno-Economic and Environmental Assessment

Abstract

The main purpose of this work is to examine the techno-economics and environmental assessment of the Solid Recovered Fuel and Lignite to methanol pathway. Methanol is produced by gasifying the solid fuels to carbon monoxide and hydrogen and then reacting to produce methanol under pressure during the methanol synthesis process. The data obtained from the partners is used to adapt this study for the liquid fuel synthesis application. The in-house personal computer-based process simulation package, ECLIPSE, is used to perform process modelling and the techno-economic assessment of methanol production. The @Risk 8.2© software is used to estimate the cost contingency of the project. The SimaPro© software package was used to carry out the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The gasifier plant contributes significantly to the capital costs. The results show that increased Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) in the feedstock mix has favourable economics due to the negative SRF charges resulting in a lower break-even selling price (BESP) than feedstock mixes with higher ratios of Lignite. Plant availability, capital investment and the time value of money are the factors that have the greatest impact on BESP. Increasing the SRF in the feedstock mix decreases the Global Warming impact of the methanol production compared to higher proportions of Lignite. However, the resultant impact is much greater than that of a natural gas reformer. Furthermore, the employment of off-gas recovery and carbon capture can further reduce both the Global Warming impact and the overall Single Score of the process, making it favourably comparable to the natural gas water gas shift configurations. Graphical abstract

Process Analysis and Design Considerations of a Low Carbon Methanol Synthesis Plant from Lignite/Waste Gasification

“…x CO = 0.000417•T − 0.326 (10) x CO2 = 0.0000327•T + 0.0303 (11) x CH4 = 0.0000119•T + 0.011 (12) x char = −0.000458•T + 1.23 ( 13)…”

“…Another promising pathway to produce low-carbon synthetic methanol is from waste thermal valorization and especially from standardized refused derived fuels, such as solid recovered fuel (SRF), a high-quality product that has a high heating value and is usually dried and processed into pallets or balled [9,10]. The SRF gasification concepts attract interest for further industrial development mainly because they (a) represent a sustainable way for landfilling mitigation, (b) improve the energy security in regions such as the EU and UK that are large fossil fuel importers and (c) are an environmentally friendly option for waste management [11,12]. Taking into account these considerations, the valorization of either coal (or lignite) with SRF for the production of liquid fuels such as methanol is a promising option towards the production of alternative fuels with lower environmental impact.…”

“…Under the framework of this project, Savuto et al [18,19] and Gallucci et al [20] firstly investigated the steam/air gasification of lignite-SRF in lab-scale fluidized bed gasification units aiming at evaluating the influence on various process parameters (temperature, steam/air ratio and type of bed material) on conversion efficiency and on syngas quality. Rolfe et al [12] recently highlighted the economic and environmental benefits from the co-gasification of lignite and SRF for the production of methanol, revealing it as an option favorably comparable to the natural gas based configurations. Moreover, it was shown that the higher the portion of SRF is, the lower the global warming effects and the break-even selling price (BESP) are.…”

Study of the Potential of Electrified Powertrains with Dual-Fuel Combustion to Achieve the 2025 Emissions Targets in Heavy-Duty Applications

“…In terms of fuels production, the TTW CO2 associated can be found in several works in the literature [160][161][162][163]. The green fuels or synthetic fuels uses renewable electricity and CO2 capture and utilization.…”