Techno-economic analysis and comparison of coal based olefins processes

Traditional olefins production is heavily dependent on oil. In the background of the scarcity of oil and richness of coal in China, olefins production from coal has been attracting more attention of the chemical process industry. The first coal based methanol-to-olefins (CMTO) plant has been commercialized in China. For shorter process route and lower capital cost, Fischer-Fropsch has been put forward in the last few years. The coal based Fischer-Tropsch-to-olefins (CFTO) process is designed in this paper and then its techno-economic and environmental performance was detailed studied in this paper, in comparison with the CMTO. Results show that at the present olefins selectivity, the CFTO suffers from relative lower energy efficiency and higher CO2 emissions. In economic aspect, the capital investment and product cost of the CFTO are roughly equivalent to that of the CMTO. Although the conversion route of the CFTO is shorter, its techno-economic performance is still inferior to that of the CMTO. It is also found that increase of olefins selectivity by cracking oil or decrease of CO2 selectivity by improving catalyst could significantly improve the performance of the CFTO. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.