Techno-economic evaluation of coal-based polygeneration systems of synthetic fuel and power with CO2 recovery

Being abundant of coal and short of oil and gas, China heavily depends on coal, which leads to the challenge to efficiently producing synthetic fuels based on coal with lower CO2 emission. In this paper, polygeneration systems with and without CO2 recovery are analyzed from the techno-economic viewpoint. The results show that energy penalty plays the important role in the cost penalty for CO2 recovery. With system integration, the polygeneration technology can achieve the trade-off between primary installed capital cost and fuel saving, which can effectively reduce the cost penalty for CO2 avoidance. Compared to the pulverized-coal power system and MEOH single-product system, the polygeneration system with CO2 recovery can get the cost penalty as low as 3.1 $/t-CO2. Compared to the polygeneration system without CO2 recovery, the cost penalty may be near zero. Considering the trend of learning-by-doing, products cost of the polygeneration system has double dropping potential as that of the traditional methanol production system and IGCC system.