Design and simulation of a methanol production plant from CO_2 hydrogenation

摘要

There has been a large increase in anthropogenic emissions of CO_2 over the past century. The use of captured CO_2 can become a profitable business, in addition to controlling CO_2 concentration in the atmosphere. A process for producing fuel grade methanol from captured CO_2 is proposed in this paper. The process is designed and simulated with Aspen Plus. The CO_2 is captured by chemical absorption from the flue gases of a thermal power plant. The hydrogen is produced by water electrolysis using carbon-free electricity. The methanol plant provides 36％ of the thermal energy required for CO_2 capture, reducing considerably the costs of the capture. The CO_2 balance of the process showed that it is possible to abate 1.6 t of CO_2 per tonne of methanol produced if oxygen by-product is sold, or 1.2 t if it is not.