Opportunities for CO 2 Utilization in Coalto Green Fuel Process: Optimal Design and Performance Evaluation

Methanol is predominantly produced by a coal-to-methanol process in China. However, this process is criticized by high CO2 emissions because of the high carbon contents of coal. The high CO2 emission and low resource utilization efficiency greatly weaken the competitiveness of the coal-to methanol industry. Coke oven gas, one of the hydrogen-rich resources, is used as fuel or directly discharged. This leads to a waste of valuable resources and serious economic losses. Aiming at effective utilization of CO2 and coke oven gas, this study proposes a novel coal-to-methanol process integrated with CO2 utilization for improving the system performance of the traditional coal-to methanol process. Coke oven gas is introduced to meet the H2/CO2 ratio required for methanol synthesis reaction by integrating with chemical looping technology. The key parameters are analyzed and optimized on the basis of the established model of the novel process. Furthermore, its advantages are manifested in detail in comparison with t...