Effect of different volumetric flowrate using energy analysis for power to methanol production plant

Emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere can cause a global warming. Global warming is the increasing of the earth‟s atmosphere overall temperature in which it is contributed by the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. The main contributor to the emission of the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the industry of power plant in which it contributed 40% of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The term of carbon dioxide captured is used to separate carbon dioxide from the fuel gas. The configuration of technology for capture carbon dioxide is post-combustion by using an absorption method using monoethanolamine (MEA). Methanol is a main product of carbon dioxide utilization in this research in which it can be produced by capturing carbon dioxide with hydrogen gas and it can be used in many products such as fuels application. The aims of this research are to design and simulate power to methanol plant by using different volumetric flowrate and to analyse energy consumption using energy analysis by manipulating different volumetric flowrate. The method used to simulate the methanol plant by using carbon dioxide and hydrogen as a raw material is the Aspen Hysys software. The energy consumption analysis was investigated by using effect of volumetric flowrate of carbon dioxide which is 1595.5 and 49577.5 m³ /h and also hydrogen which is 158.2 and 4959.02 m³/h. The other fixed variables are temperature which is 210⁰C, pressure at 75.7 bar and reactor volume at 45 m³. Three plants are simulated in the Aspen Hysys and the energy consumption duty was analysed. The total energy duty for plant 1 is 146775 kW in which it cost about RM 59,713.14 meanwhile for plant 2, the total energy duty is 3510 kW and has a cost about RM 2,003.87. Lastly, the total energy duty for plant 3 is 393789 kW in which it is cost RM 191,876.35. Therefore, it can conclude that the plant that has the lowest cost is plant 2 with the cost of RM 2,003.87 per month compared to plant 1 and 3. The reason is because of the low volumetric flowrate enters the plant in which it contributes a small amount of energy duty that only consumes 3510 kW compared to the other plants and thus, it can be stated that the lower volumetric flowrate for feed, the smaller amount of energy it will be used and thus used a low cost for the production.