applied sciences Article A Comparative Exergoeconomic Evaluation of the Synthesis Routes for Methanol Production from Natural Gas Timo Blumberg 1,*, Tatiana Morosuk 2 and George Tsatsaronis 2 ID 1 Department of Energy Engineering, Zentralinstitut El Gouna, Technische Universität Berlin, 13355 Berlin, Germany 2 Institute for Energy Engineering, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany;
[email protected] (T.M.);
[email protected] (G.T.) * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +49-30-314-23343 Received: 30 October 2017; Accepted: 20 November 2017; Published: 24 November 2017 Abstract: Methanol is one of the most important feedstocks for the chemical, petrochemical, and energy industries. Abundant and widely distributed resources as well as a relative low price level make natural gas the predominant feedstock for methanol production. Indirect synthesis routes via reforming of methane suppress production from bio resources and other renewable alternatives. However, the conventional technology for the conversion of natural gas to methanol is energy intensive and costly in investment and operation. Three design cases with different reforming technologies in conjunction with an isothermal methanol reactor are investigated. Case I is equipped with steam methane reforming for a capacity of 2200 metric tons per day (MTPD). For a higher production capacity, a serial combination of steam reforming and autothermal reforming is used in Case II, while Case III deals with a parallel configuration of CO2 and steam reforming. A sensitivity analysis shows that the syngas composition significantly affects the thermodynamic performance of the plant. The design cases have exergetic efficiencies of 28.2%, 55.6% and 41.0%, respectively.