Abstract
The production of synthetic or substitute natural gas (SNG) from coal is a process of interest in Colombia where the reserves-to-production ratio (R/P) for natural gas is expected to be between 7 and 10 years, while the R/P for coal is forecasted to be around 90 years. In this work, the process to produce SNG by means of coal-entrained flow gasifiers is modeled under thermochemical equilibrium with the Gibbs free energy approach. The model was developed using a complete and comprehensive Aspen Plus model. Two typical technologies used in entrained flow gasifiers such as coal dry and coal slurry are modeled and simulated. Emphasis is put on interactions between the fuel feeding technology and selected energy output parameters of coal-SNG process, that is, energy efficiencies, power, and SNG quality. It was found that coal rank does not significantly affect energy indicators such as cold gas, process, and global efficiencies. However, feeding technology clearly has an effect on the process due to the gasifying agent. Simulations results are compared against available technical data with good accuracy. Thus, the proposed model is considered as a versatile and useful computational tool to study and optimize the coal to SNG process.
Highlights
Coal is a major source of energy, accounting for ∼25% of the world energy supplies and ∼40% of the world electricity generation
Since most of the revised literature did not go deep into model details, this study presents as an additional contribution, a comprehensive and complete model of coal to substitute natural gas (SNG) process under thermochemical equilibrium developed in Aspen Plus
Two global parameters to estimate the quality of simulation results and to compare with reference data are proposed in different works, the root mean square deviation (RMSD) or root mean square error (RMSE) and the relative error (RE) [53, 54]
Summary
Coal is a major source of energy, accounting for ∼25% of the world energy supplies and ∼40% of the world electricity generation. Armin [18] and Silaen and Wang [19] conducted numerical simulations of the gasification process in entrained flow reactors They studied the effect of the operating parameters such as coal dry feeding and slurry feeding systems, type of gasifying agent, and coal rank in the global gasifier performance. Using biomass as a feedstock to produce SNG by means of gasification, Vitasari et al [20] developed an Aspen Plus model to conduct an exergy analysis of different biomass types (wood, urban solid wastes (USW), and sewage sludge) They simulated the process under different operating conditions, including variations in the reactor pressure as well as temperature and pressure in the methanation reactor. Since most of the revised literature did not go deep into model details, this study presents as an additional contribution, a comprehensive and complete model of coal to SNG process under thermochemical equilibrium developed in Aspen Plus
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