Design and simulation of a methanol production plant from CO2 hydrogenation

There has been a large increase in anthropogenic emissions of CO2 over the past century. The use of captured CO2 can become a profitable business, in addition to controlling CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. A process for producing fuel grade methanol from captured CO2 is proposed in this paper. The process is designed and simulated with Aspen Plus. The CO2 is captured by chemical absorption from the flue gases of a thermal power plant. The hydrogen is produced by water electrolysis using carbon-free electricity. The methanol plant provides 36% of the thermal energy required for CO2 capture, reducing considerably the costs of the capture. The CO2 balance of the process showed that it is possible to abate 1.6 t of CO2 per tonne of methanol produced if oxygen by-product is sold, or 1.2 t if it is not.