Olefin Production via Methanol Integrated with Light Hydrocarbon Conversion: Novel Process Designs, Techno-Economic Analysis, and Environmental Analysis

Abstract

Olefin production via methanol from different resources is a promising technology, which has been widely studied. However, there are many hydrocarbons produced in methanol to olefins except ethylene and propylene which are of high values. This work proposes four novel designs by integrating olefin production via methanol with a light hydrocarbon conversion unit to increase the yield of ethylene and propylene. Based on the data of mass and energy balances from Aspen HYSYS, the four novel designs are systematically compared to their profitability and sustainability from the techno-economic and environmental aspects. The results present that the yield of ethylene and propylene is improved significantly; almost all the hydrocarbon byproducts are converted into ethylene and propylene. In addition, the result of techno-economic analysis shows that producing ethylene and propylene from the coal-based design is the most attractive design among the five designs, about 113.16% as much as that of the conventional design. The environmental analysis indicates that the life cycle greenhouse gas emission of producing ethylene and propylene from the biomass-based design, which has the best environmental performance, is only 49.46% of that from the conventional design.

Hybrid Modeling of Methanol to Olefin Reaction Kinetics Based on the Artificial Neural Network

“…Light olefins, e.g., ethylene, propylene, and butane, have received great attention as they are essential materials for the polymer industry. − With the gradual depletion of petroleum, there is an urgent need to use nonpetroleum as materials to replace traditional olefin production routes . Methanol to olefins (MTO) is an important process used to produce light olefins from coal. − The reaction kinetics model is crucial to describe the distribution of MTO reaction products. , It can meet the major demand for a cyber-physical systems (CPS) model base in the construction of an intelligent factory for the coal chemical industry in reactor simulation, design, scale-up, and optimization.…”

Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Inhomogeneous Flow Behaviors inside a Particle Cluster in the OCM Reaction

“…As one of the fundamental raw materials in the chemical industry, ethylene is widely utilized for the large-scale production of various chemicals. Presently, industrial production of ethylene primarily involves oil-based, , coal-based, , and light olefin-based methods. , Among these methods, the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) technology stands out by shortening processes and utilizing abundant and cost-effective methane as a raw material, which contributes to the efficient utilization of natural gas resources. , The OCM reaction was initially proposed by Keller and Bhasin in 1982 . The reaction consists of three main steps: absorption of oxygen on the catalyst surface, formation of methyl radicals, coupling of methyl radicals and dehydrogenation of ethane.…”