Novel process design and techno-economic simulation of methanol synthesis from blast furnace gas in an integrated steelworks CCUS system

A novel process design and techno-economic performance assessment for methanol synthesis from Blast Furnace Gas (BFG) is presented. Methanol synthesis using BFG as a feedstock, based on direct CO 2 hydrogenation at commercial scale was simulated using Aspen Plus software to evaluate its technical performance and economic viability. The applied process steps involve first conditioning BFG using adsorption based desulfurisation, water-gas shift, dehydration, then separation of components into N 2 , CO 2 and H 2 rich streams using pressure swing adsorption. The H 2 stream and a fraction of the CO 2 stream are fed to a methanol synthesis system, while the remaining CO 2 may be considered for geological storage in a Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) case, or not in a Carbon Capture Utilization (CCU) case. Techno-economic analysis confirms methanol production from BFG is economically attractive under certain conditions, with Levelized Cost of Methanol production (LCOMeOH) calculated to be 344.61 £/tonne-methanol, and costs of CO 2 avoided of − 20.08 £/tonne-CO 2 for the CCU process and 9.01 £/tonne-CO 2 for the CCUS process when using a set of baseline engineering assumptions. Sensitivity analysis of the process simulation explores opportunities for optimising the methanol synthesis system in terms of the impact of reactor size and/or recycle ratio on LCOMeOH. Economic viability of the CCU(S) processes is also found to be highly dependent on the cost of the feedstock BFG. Future cost savings as compared to business-as-usual steel production by 2030 in consideration of expected increases in the carbon price are estimated to be 10.59 £/tonne-steel for CCU and 24.61 £/tonne-steel for CCUS.