Sustainable Dimethyl Carbonate Production from Ethylene Oxide and Methanol

Abstract

A large-scale dimethyl carbonate (DMC) production process from ethylene oxide (EO), CO 2 , and methanol was simulated and optimized. Unlike most industrial processes of DMC production, the direct conversion of EO and CO 2 to ethylene carbonate (EC) and EC transesterification to DMC were performed in a single reactor. The reaction volume and the reactor operating pressure were selected as decision variables and evaluated. The key performance parameters, e.g., conversion per pass and CO 2 intensity, were compared with conventional commercialized routes or novel promising processes in the literature.

Biogas as an energy vector

“…Physical CO2 utilization routes include use of it in carbonated drinks, fire extinguisher, dry ice, refrigerant, solvent, welding medium, process fluid, algae farms for photosynthesis, enhanced oil/gas recovery, etc. CO2 can be chemically utilized in the following processes: synthesis gas production, methanol production, di-methyl ether (DME) production, urea synthesis, di-methyl carbonate (DMC) production [52], polyurethane production [53],…”

Design of Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) Synthesis Process Using CO2, Techno-economic Analysis, and Life Cycle Assessment

“…CO2 used as raw material is assumed to be captured from gas discharged from the naphtha cracking center. The thermodynamic model for the entire process uses non-randomtwo-liquid (NRTL) [9]. The DMC production process is largely divided into a process of synthesizing EC and a process of synthesizing DMC and separating it from a distillation column as presented in Fig.…”

“…Labor costs are calculated by considering the number of people required for process operation, operating hours, and hourly wages. The number of people required for process operation is calculated through equation (9). 𝐍 𝐎𝐋 = (𝟔.…”

“…𝟕𝐏 𝟐 + 𝟎. 𝟐𝟑𝐍 𝐏𝐋 ) 𝟎.𝟓 (9) where NOL is the number of operators per shift, P is the number of processing steps involving the handling of particulates solids, which is 0, and NPL is the number of nonparticulate processing steps (involving compressing, heating, cooling, mixing, reaction), which is 14. Also, since the number of work shift operators considering working hours and process operating hours is 4.5, NOL is multiplied by the number of work shift operators to finally calculate the labor cost [12].…”