Techno-economic feasibility of methanol synthesis using dual fuel system in a parallel process design configuration with control on green house gas emissions

Abstract Recently, the methanol production has received a lot of attraction in the process industries due to its wide applications in the synthesis of many commercial chemicals and fuels. Most of the coal to methanol processes suffers from higher water consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and lower yields. The aim of this study is to develop a novel energy efficient and economic viable process that may not only increase the methanol production capacity but also offers the less energy requirements with improved process economics. In this study, coal gasification process is sequentially integrated in the parallel design configuration with the natural gas reforming technology to enhance the heating value of the resulting syngas for methanol production. To achieve this aim, two case studies have been developed and compared in terms of overall process performance and economics. Case 1 represents the conventional coal to methanol process, whereas, case 2 represents the conceptual design of integrating the gasification and reforming technologies for enhanced methanol production. The process efficiencies calculated for case 1 and case 2 is 63.2% and 70.0%, respectively. It has been seen from results that the methanol production energy for case 1 and case 2 is 0.69 kg/W and 0.76 kg/W, respectively. In terms of process economics, the methanol production cost for case 1 and case 2 has been estimated as 250 €/tonne and 234 €/tonne, respectively. The comparative analysis showed that the case 2 design not only offers higher process performance but also enhances the process feasibility compared to the conventional coal based processes.