TY - JOUR
T1 - Remote, small-scale, ‘greener’ routes of ammonia production
AU - Arora, Pratham
AU - Sharma, Ishan
AU - Hoadley, Andrew
AU - Mahajani, Sanjay
AU - Ganesh, Anuradda
PY - 2018/10/20
Y1 - 2018/10/20
N2 -
The techno-economic feasibility of low-carbon–based ammonia (NH
3
) production has been explored in this study. Black coal and a eucalyptus-based biomass, available in the vicinity of a carbon dioxide (CO
2
) sequestration site, have been chosen as the two carbon-based feedstocks. The scale of the production of NH
3
has been chosen to match the production of a bulk industrial Ammonium Nitrate/Fuel Oil (ANFO) explosives manufacturing facility. The production of NH
3
from any carbon-based feedstock implicitly involves a CO
2
-removal step; therefore, only CO
2
pressurisation to the supercritical state is required before transporting it to the storage location. In order to gain a better understanding of the economic and environmental trade-offs, two representative flowsheets have been modelled in Aspen Plus
®
simulation software for the two feedstocks. A Natural Gas (NG)-based NH
3
process has also been modelled for comparison. Material and energy balance data from the Aspen Plus
®
simulation has been used to predict the economics and carbon footprint of NH
3
production from different feedstocks. A cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been performed to predict the environmental hotspots. A genetic algorithm based Multi-objective Optimisation (MOO) has generated Pareto plots that represent the minimum cost of NH
3
production against different CO
2
footprints. For a similar CO
2
footprint, the coal-based NH
3
process has been found to be more economic than the biomass-based process. However, the biomass-based process has the potential to be carbon negative by capturing the biogenic CO
2
, which is not possible in a coal-based process. The cost of carbon capture in coal-based NH
3
production has been estimated to be between 11 and 19 US$/tCO
2
eq
, which is significantly lower than the cost of CO
2
capture from coal-based power generation (usually reported to be in the range of 40–60 US$/tCO
2
).
AB -
The techno-economic feasibility of low-carbon–based ammonia (NH
3
) production has been explored in this study. Black coal and a eucalyptus-based biomass, available in the vicinity of a carbon dioxide (CO
2
) sequestration site, have been chosen as the two carbon-based feedstocks. The scale of the production of NH
3
has been chosen to match the production of a bulk industrial Ammonium Nitrate/Fuel Oil (ANFO) explosives manufacturing facility. The production of NH
3
from any carbon-based feedstock implicitly involves a CO
2
-removal step; therefore, only CO
2
pressurisation to the supercritical state is required before transporting it to the storage location. In order to gain a better understanding of the economic and environmental trade-offs, two representative flowsheets have been modelled in Aspen Plus
®
simulation software for the two feedstocks. A Natural Gas (NG)-based NH
3
process has also been modelled for comparison. Material and energy balance data from the Aspen Plus
®
simulation has been used to predict the economics and carbon footprint of NH
3
production from different feedstocks. A cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been performed to predict the environmental hotspots. A genetic algorithm based Multi-objective Optimisation (MOO) has generated Pareto plots that represent the minimum cost of NH
3
production against different CO
2
footprints. For a similar CO
2
footprint, the coal-based NH
3
process has been found to be more economic than the biomass-based process. However, the biomass-based process has the potential to be carbon negative by capturing the biogenic CO
2
, which is not possible in a coal-based process. The cost of carbon capture in coal-based NH
3
production has been estimated to be between 11 and 19 US$/tCO
2
eq
, which is significantly lower than the cost of CO
2
capture from coal-based power generation (usually reported to be in the range of 40–60 US$/tCO
2
).
KW - Ammonia production
KW - Biomass
KW - Coal
KW - Economics
KW - Life cycle assessment (LCA)
KW - Multi-objective optimisation (MOO)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85050239181&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.06.130
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.06.130
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85050239181
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 199
SP - 177
EP - 192
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
ER -
