System study on natural gas-based polygeneration system of DME and electricity

Abstract

An innovative system for the polygeneration of dimethyl ether (DME) and electricity was proposed in this paper. The system uses natural gas as the raw material. Polygeneration is sequential, with one-step and once-through DME synthesis. Syngas is made to react to synthesize DME first, and then the residual syngas is sent to the power generation unit as fuel. The exergy analysis from the view of cascade utilization was executed for individual generation and for polygeneration. The analysis results showed that both chemical energy and thermal energy in polygeneration were effectively utilized, and both chemical exergy destruction and thermal exergy destruction in polygeneration were decreased. The cause of the decrease in exergy destruction was revealed. The analysis showed that hydrogen-rich (natural gas-based) polygeneration was as desirable as carbon-rich (coal-based) polygeneration. The energy saving ratio of polygeneration was about 10.2%, which demonstrated that high efficiency natural gas-based polygeneration is attainable, and the cascade utilizations of both chemical energy and thermal energy are key contributors to the improvement of performance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.