Techno-Economic Assessment of Bio-Syngas Production for Methanol Synthesis: A Focus on the Water–Gas Shift and Carbon Capture Sections

Giuliano, Aristide; Freda, Cesare; Catizzone, Enrico

doi:10.3390/bioengineering7030070

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Techno-Economic Assessment of Bio-Syngas Production for Methanol Synthesis: A Focus on the Water–Gas Shift and Carbon Capture Sections

Aristide Giuliano

Cesare Freda

and

Enrico Catizzone

ENEA–Italian Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Department of Energetic Technologies, Trisaia Research Centre, I-75026 Rotondella, Italy

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Bioengineering 2020, 7(3), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030070

Received: 1 June 2020 / Revised: 1 July 2020 / Accepted: 2 July 2020 / Published: 4 July 2020

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomass Conversion)

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Abstract

The biomass-to-methanol process may play an important role in introducing renewables in the industry chain for chemical and fuel production. Gasification is a thermochemical process to produce syngas from biomass, but additional steps are requested to obtain a syngas composition suitable for methanol synthesis. The aim of this work is to perform a computer-aided process simulation to produce methanol starting from a syngas produced by oxygen–steam biomass gasification, whose details are reported in the literature. Syngas from biomass gasification was compressed to 80 bar, which may be considered an optimal pressure for methanol synthesis. The simulation was mainly focused on the water–gas shift/carbon capture sections requested to obtain a syngas with a (H₂ – CO₂)/(CO + CO₂) molar ratio of about 2, which is optimal for methanol synthesis. Both capital and operating costs were calculated as a function of the CO conversion in the water–gas shift (WGS) step and CO₂ absorption level in the carbon capture (CC) unit (by Selexol^® process). The obtained results show the optimal CO conversion is 40% with CO₂ capture from the syngas equal to 95%. The effect of the WGS conversion level on methanol production cost was also assessed. For the optimal case, a methanol production cost equal to 0.540 €/kg was calculated. View Full-Text

Keywords: biomass gasification; bio-methanol; process simulation; carbon capture; economic analysis

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MDPI and ACS Style

Giuliano, A.; Freda, C.; Catizzone, E. Techno-Economic Assessment of Bio-Syngas Production for Methanol Synthesis: A Focus on the Water–Gas Shift and Carbon Capture Sections. Bioengineering 2020, 7, 70. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030070

AMA Style

Giuliano A, Freda C, Catizzone E. Techno-Economic Assessment of Bio-Syngas Production for Methanol Synthesis: A Focus on the Water–Gas Shift and Carbon Capture Sections. Bioengineering. 2020; 7(3):70. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030070

Chicago/Turabian Style

Giuliano, Aristide, Cesare Freda, and Enrico Catizzone. 2020. "Techno-Economic Assessment of Bio-Syngas Production for Methanol Synthesis: A Focus on the Water–Gas Shift and Carbon Capture Sections" Bioengineering 7, no. 3: 70. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering7030070

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Techno-Economic Assessment of Bio-Syngas Production for Methanol Synthesis: A Focus on the Water–Gas Shift and Carbon Capture Sections

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