ASU
Air
Nitrogen
CO to CCS
Purge gas
Oxygen
Natural gas feed
Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis reactor
CO desor- ption
Feed compressor
Steam generation
Hydrogen
Purge gas
High temp. shift
Hydrogen- ation
Condenser
Catalyst bed
Phase separator
Steam generation
Gas heated reformer GHR
Auto- thermal reformer ATR
Low temp. shift
Sulphur removal
Cryogenic heat exchanger
NH
Recycle compressor
Liquid ammonia
Distillation column
Condensate
Feed preparation
Reforming
CO removal
Methanation and cryogenic nitrogen wash
Ammonia synthesis
Ammonia liquefaction and storage
Water gas shift reactors
Figure 5 Blue ammonia production process with GHR/ATR
MR2000 was selected by MEGlobal Oyster Creek for its EO production facility, which started up in 2020. Linde operates an ASU to supply oxygen to the MEGlobal EO plant and recovers, purifies, and liquefies CO2 captured from the EO process for distribution to commercial applications such as wastewater pH control, food freezing and beverage carbonation in the local market. Gulf Cryo, a leading industrial gases company in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, obtains CO 2 from one of Equate Petrochemical Company’s ethylene glycol (EG) plants in Kuwait’s Shuaiba Industrial Area. Equate is owned by The Dow Chemical Company and three Kuwaiti entities. A pipeline of several hundred metres transfers raw CO 2 from the stripper column on the EG plant to the Gulf Cryo site, where it is dried, liquefied, and purified using cryogenic distillation. When Gulf Cryo’s CO 2 capture and liquefaction process was commissioned in October 2014, it became the first CO2 capture project in Kuwait with the capacity to liquefy 55,000 t/a CO2 . Sourcing this CO 2 as a byproduct from the EO facility avoids the use of a natural gas burner to generate CO 2 for local merchant applications, thereby minimising fossil fuel consumption and supporting decarbonisation. Gas heated reforming Gas heated reforming (GHR) was developed by ICI in the UK in the 1980s and referred to as the Leading Concept Methanol. Similarly, the Leading
Concept Ammonia uses a GHR for ammonia production. The GHR is followed by an ATR (see Figure 5 ). Oxygen is injected into the ATR, where some exothermic partial oxidation reactions take place. The heat from these reactions maintains autothermal operation in the ATR and is also used to heat the GHR. Since the GHR is heated using syngas from the ATR, there is no need to have a fired burner in the SMR. This avoids the need for post-combustion CO 2 capture in this reforming configuration. From 1994 to 2016, Coogee Energy operated a 70,000 t/a methanol facility at Laverton in Victoria, Australia. The plant used a GHR and ATR in the LCM configuration. Rising gas prices in Victoria rendered the Laverton plant uneconomic after 20 years of successful operation. To capitalise on the potential for a lower cost natural gas feedstock, Coogee proposed a AU$500 million investment in a 350,000 t/d methanol plant in Darwin Harbour, in Australia’s Northern Territory. The potential for CCS in the Southeast Asia, north of Darwin, is high. Therefore, there would be good prospects for blue methanol production at this location using the GHR process and pre-combustion CO 2 capture.
Stephen B Harrison sbh@sbh4.de
www.decarbonisationtechnology.com
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