Methanol-power production using coal and methane as materials integrated with a two-level adjustment system

Abstract This work presents a detailed investigation on coal/methane-based co-production of methanol and power with a two-level adjustment system, and the potential feasibility of the system were verified through thermodynamic perspective. The whole process was modeled and simulated with Aspen Plus (v8.6). The purity of methanol product in the proposed system reaches 99.3%. And almost 100% of the captured CO 2 concentration can be achieved. Meanwhile the system energy performance was presented. The net power efficiency is 4.75% while the methanol efficiency is 51.08%. Three key factors, gasification temperature, methane/coal, and steam/syngas, were analyzed. With the increase of gasification temperature, the methanol production would grow up. However, the influence of gasification temperature on the methanol concentration and whole plant efficiency were not obvious. When the methane/coal is 0.3, the methanol concentration reaches the peak value. With the increase of methane/coal, the whole plant efficiency was rose up. The methanol concentration was declined with the increase of steam/syngas, while the methanol production shown an opposite trend. And the effect of steam/syngas on the system efficiencies was not obvious.