Techno-Economic Analysis of Large Scale Production of Poly(oxymethylene) Dimethyl Ether Fuels from Methanol in Water-Tolerant Processes

Abstract

Poly(oxymethylene) dimethyl ether (OME) are a much-discussed and promising synthetic and renewable fuel for reducing soot and, if produced as e-fuel, CO2 emissions. OME production is generally based on the platform chemical methanol as an intermediate. Thus, the OME production cost is strongly dependent on the methanol cost. This work investigates OME production from methanol. Seven routes for providing methanolic formaldehyde solutions are conceptually designed for the first time and simulated in a process simulator. They are coupled with a state-of-the-art OME synthesis to evaluate the economics of the overall production chain from methanol to OME. For a plant size of 100 kt/a, the average levelized product cost of OME is 79.08 EUR/t plus 1.31 times the cost of methanol in EUR/t.