Intensification and performance assessment of the formic acid production process through a dividing wall reactive distillation column with vapor recompression

Sharma, Swapnil; Patle, Dipesh S.; Gadhamsetti, Akhil Premkumar; Pandit, Sanket; Manca, Davide; Gnanasundaram, Nirmala

doi:10.1016/j.cep.2017.11.016

Cited by 27 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Syngas is needed as CO in order to react with methanol; it may come from steam reforming of light ends, as natural gas, from partial oxidation of fossil feedstocks or from coal gasification [3]. Limitations of the FA conventional process can include slow reaction rate, undesirable by-products, high cost of investment, and issues related to the environment such as the high energy requirements (in the separation stage) and a noticeable dependence on fossil fuel (heavy fuel oil is used in the synthesis of CO) [4]. Thus, in parallel to the alarming issue of the global warming and climate change, the depletion of the mentioned fossil fuels, which must remain underground for generations to come, may seem less evident.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formic Acid Manufacture: Carbon Dioxide Utilization Alternatives

2018

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Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) utilization alternatives for manufacturing formic acid (FA) such as electrochemical reduction (ER) or homogeneous catalysis of CO 2 and H 2 could be efficient options for developing more environmentally-friendly production alternatives to FA fossil-dependant production. However, these alternatives are currently found at different technological readiness levels (TRLs), and some remaining technical challenges need to be overcome to achieve at least carbon-even FA compared to the commercial process, especially ER of CO 2 , which is still farther from its industrial application. The main technical limitations inherited by FA production by ER are the low FA concentration achieved and the high overpotentials required, which involve high consumptions of energy (ER cell) and steam (distillation). In this study, a comparison in terms of carbon footprints (CF) using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool was done to evaluate the potential technological challenges assuring the environmental competitiveness of the FA production by ER of CO 2 . The CF of the FA conventional production were used as a benchmark, as well as the CF of a simulated plant based on homogeneous catalysts of CO 2 and H 2 (found closer to be commercial). Renewable energy utilization as PV solar for the reaction is essential to achieve a carbon-even product; however, the CF benefits are still negligible due to the enormous contribution of the steam produced by natural gas (purification stage). Some ER reactor configurations, plus a recirculation mode, could achieve an even CF versus commercial process. It was demonstrated that the ER alternatives could lead to lower natural resources consumption (mainly, natural gas and heavy fuel oil) compared to the commercial process, which is a noticeable advantage in environmental sustainability terms.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formic Acid Manufacture: Carbon Dioxide Utilization Alternatives

2018

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“…The stages with main energy consumptions in FA synthesis are syngas production and steam needs. Limitations of the FA conventional process can include slow reaction rate, undesirable by-products, high cost of investment, and issues related to the environment such as the high energy requirements (in the separation stage) and a noticeable dependence on fossil fuel (heavy fuel oil is used in the synthesis of CO) (Sharma et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Conventional Manufacture Of Formic Acid (Fa)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental and economic assessment of the formic acid electrochemical manufacture using carbon dioxide: Influence of the electrode lifetime

Rumayor

Domínguez-Ramos

Irabien

2019

Sustainable Production and Consumption

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This paper focuses on the study of the environmental and economic feasibility of the formic acid (FA) synthesis by means of electrochemical reduction (ER) of carbon dioxide (CO2) with special emphasis on the cathode lifetime. The study has used a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach in order to obtain the environmental indicators as Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Abiotic Depletion (ADP) (both elements and fossil resources ADPs). The values of the indicators obtained in the assessment were representative of the Carbon Footprint (CF) and resource savings of this fabrication process. The commercial/conventional process for FA production was used as benchmark. The novelty of the study is the incorporation into the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) of those materials and chemicals that are used in the fabrication of an ER cell, and in particular in the cathode. Hence, the lifetime of the cathode was used as a main parameter. The results obtained

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“…The VRC-DWC with a middle partition is the configuration wherein the prefractionator and main column are fully thermally coupled and frequently used for conventional distillation (referred to as VRC-DWC); − the VRC-assisted DWC with an upper partition is the configuration wherein the prefractionator and main column are partly thermally coupled in the stripping section and frequently used for extractive distillation (referred to as VRC-EDWC); and the VRC-assisted DWC with a lower partition is the configuration wherein the prefractionator and main column are partly thermally coupled in the rectifying section and is frequently used for azeotropic distillation (referred to as VRC-ADWC) . VRC-assisted reactive DWC (VRC-RDWC) can adopt any of the above configurations according to the process characteristics . It has been revealed by a simulated method that the VRC system enables significant improvements to the energy efficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…10 VRC-assisted reactive DWC (VRC-RDWC) can adopt any of the above configurations according to the process characteristics. 11 It has been revealed by a simulated method that the VRC system enables significant improvements to the energy efficiency. However, the control of the vapor recompression-assisted DWC configurations remains challenging due to the complex structure of the DWC and the heat exchange between the DWC and VRC systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective Control of Vapor Recompression-Assisted Dividing Wall Column with a Middle Partition

Gao

Liu

Yin

et al. 2020

Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.

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Vapor recompression-assisted dividing wall columns (VRC-DWCs) with a middle partition have been shown to have a higher energy efficiency compared to conventional DWCs. However, the controllability of this highly integrated process remains as a challenging issue since all of the benefits of a VRC-DWC are reasonable only under good dynamic controllability. Compared to the control of the vapor recompression-assisted dividing wall column with an upper or a lower partition, the control for this kind of process is more difficult since it has less degree of freedom. Hence, this paper develops three novel and effective control structures for VRC-DWCs with upper middle, lower middle, and center middle partitions, respectively. In the proposed control structures, the compressor work is selected to control the main column’s bottom purity and the flowrate of vaporized bottom liquid is selected to control the temperature of the outlet compressed vapor. The dynamic simulation results for three separation cases reveal that the proposed structures can handle disturbances in feed flowrate and compositions quite well with fairly small integral absolute error (IAE) values. This work provides novel control strategy of the VRC-assisted DWC processes and offers a choice for the energy-efficient distillation applications from the standpoint of dynamic controllabilities.

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Intensification and performance assessment of the formic acid production process through a dividing wall reactive distillation column with vapor recompression

Cited by 27 publications

References 22 publications

Formic Acid Manufacture: Carbon Dioxide Utilization Alternatives

Formic Acid Manufacture: Carbon Dioxide Utilization Alternatives

Environmental and economic assessment of the formic acid electrochemical manufacture using carbon dioxide: Influence of the electrode lifetime

Effective Control of Vapor Recompression-Assisted Dividing Wall Column with a Middle Partition

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