Environmental and economic efficiency of small-scale methanol production based on syngas generators
A.M. Kuzmin, E.M. Gashevskiy
Section: Ecologization of industry
The paper addresses the problem of methanol supply to remote oil and gas fields. It is shown that the traditional transportation scheme involves high environmental risks due to potential spills and pollution. As an alternative, the development of mobile small-scale methanol production units based on non-catalytic partial oxidation of methane in a syngas generator (SGG) is proposed. The results of numerical simulation of in-chamber processes for methanol capacity of 5000 t/year are presented. It is established that optimization of the mixing head allows achieving methane combustion efficiency of 99.2 % without soot formation and with minimal residual methane. Based on life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, the carbon footprint was calculated. It is shown that on-site methanol production reduces specific green house gas emissions by 40–58 % compared with centralized production and transportation over a distance of 2000–5000 km. The results of a techno-economic assessment for capacities of 2500–10000 t/year are presented, including CAPEX, OPEX, production cost, IRR, NPV and payback period. A systematic analysis of environmental and technological risks of SGG implementation, including fire and explosion hazards, with justification of mitigation measures, has been performed. It is concluded that the implementation of SGG-based units significantly reduces the environmental pressure in remote areas by eliminating long-distance hazardous cargo transportation and decreasing green house gas emissions.
ISSN 1995-4301
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