Final project Process & Power Plant Design 2023-2024

Some general information about the final project:

• We expect each team member to spend about 60 hours on this assignment (both
project phases together).
• The project consists of two phases. In the first phase, a process block scheme should
be the outcome. Here the deliverables is a short short pre-recorded presentation of 6
minutes (max. 6 slides). Deadline for handing this in is: Friday 24 May 2024, 10:45
via Brightspace.
• The second phase of the project consists of designing the full process flow diagram
with accompanying mass and energy balances using Aspen PlusTM flowsheeting
package. An instruction lecture will be given on Friday 3 May during the lecture
hours.
• Final presentations of each 10 minutes (max 8 slides) per group are to be given via a
recorded presentation (use e.g. MS-TEAMS; upload via Brightspace Assignments).
Deadline for uploading your presentation is Wednesday 12 June 2024 09:00h. You
can choose to give the recorded presentation with 2 persons per team; more is not wise
given the limited time you have.
• The deadline for uploading the final report and the Aspen PlusTM model (in bkp as
well as in apw format) in Brightspace (via Assignments) is on Wednesday 12 June
2024, 14:00h. The maximum number of pages for the body of the second (final) report
is 20 pages. With the "body of the report" we mean introduction to conclusions; it
does not include table of contents, symbols list, references, appendices, etc. Criteria
for grading the final project report (phase 2) include: short literature overview of max.
2 pages(2 points); justification of assumptions and choices (2 points); clarity of
description (2 points); model complexity (2 points); creativity (2 points); correctness
of the solution (2 points); use of references (1 point); symbols list (0.5 points); lay-out
(1 point). Max. points is 14.5 (which will normalized to 10).
 PROJECT A (Group numbers 1,2,3,4,5): A novel, renewable energy based Hydrogen
Peroxide (H2O2) production process plant design

Hydrogen Peroxide is a bulk chemical in the process industry; its chemical formula is H2O2.
The molecule is depicted in Figure 1

Figure 1 Model of H2O2 molecule

The world production in 2020 was 4.6 Mton per year and is forecast to reach 6.92 Mton per
year in 2030 (marketresearch.com, 2021). The applications are quite diverse; important uses
are in bleaching in the pulp & paper industry and also in textile manufacturing, cleaning
surfaces (also in the medical sector), detoxifying water effluents and such uses as hair bleaching
with low concentrations in aqueous solution (see e.g. Goor et al. 2019). Also, the product has
been used as propellant, a fuel. In its use H2O2 is considered an inherently green oxidant, one
of the cleanest, most versatile chemical oxidants available, as it decomposes into water and
oxygen (Biasi et al., 2013). The big bulk of the world production still relies on the so-called
anthraquinone oxidation process (AO; also termed the ‘’Riedel-Pfleiderer process), however
this process has quite some downsides and high costs. One novel alternative is to use direct,
selective oxidation of hydrogen performed in supercritical CO2 (see e.g. Dittmeyer et al., 2015;
.). An initial process scheme has been presented in literature and is depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Simplified block scheme for a continuous process for production of aqueous hydrogen peroxide solutions using dense
CO2 as solvent/reaction medium (figure from: Dittmeyer et al., 2015).

This block scheme is by far not complete and also there are many degrees of freedom in reactor
and separation technique choices to be made to come up with a full process scheme.

The assignment is to propose a process plant for the production of an amount of hydrogen
peroxide that you decide based on a multi-criteria analysis. You have to follow the Douglas
approach that was explained in the lectures. The targeted quality of the H2O2 product is different
per group. Your group number is N. Target at a H2O2 concentration of (60 + 1.0N) wt% H2O2
end product of your process with the rest being water and only < 1 ppmw of other compounds
is required (e.g. alcohols). One additional requirement is that you have to include an electricity-
driven heat pump in your process design.

Raw materials:
Hydrogen ex electrolyser via H2-distribution network (outside Battery Limits of your project):
20 oC, 50 bar, costs €1500/ton, may fall to lower values
• hydrogen 99.9 mole%
 • oxygen < 2ppm
• water remaining part

Oxygen ex electrolyser via trucks and chilled liquid storage (outside Battery Limits of your
project):
15 bar, costs €35/ton, may fall to lower values
• oxygen almost pure, only trace of H2 (see entry below)
• hydrogen < 2ppm

Ethanol: pure; you may also want to select another alcohol.

Carbon dioxide ex carbon capture plant via CCS-network (simplified)

20ºC, 20 bar, costs €20/ton, may increase to higher values
• Carbon dioxide > 97,5 mole %
• Non-condensables < 2 mole % (assume nitrogen)
• Carbon monoxide < 5000 ppm
• SO2 < 2000 ppm

Products
Hydrogen Peroxide:
Liquid solution, 20 oC, 1 atm., market value price depends on quality, make a sophisticated
guess based on literature.

Costs of utilities (future projections)

Electricity cost: € 0.040/kWh
Natural gas cost: € 0.018/kWh
Cooling water is available at a temperature of max 18 oC. Only the pumping costs should be
considered

Contact+supervision: Prof.dr.ir. Wiebren de Jong, Process & Energy,

[email protected]

References

https://www.marketresearch.com/ChemAnalyst-v4204/Global-Hydrogen-Peroxide-
Plant-Capacity-14810413/

Biasi, P., Serna, J.G., Salmi, T.O., and Mikkola, J.-P. (2013) Hydrogen Peroxide direct
synthesis: enhancement of selectivity and production with non-conventional methods.
Chemical Eng.Transactions 32, pp. 673-678.

Dittmeyer, R., Grunwaldt, J.-D., and Pashkova, A. (2015) A review of catalyst performance
and novel reaction engineering concepts in direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide. Cat.Today
248, pp. 149-159.

Goor, G., Glenneberg, J., Jacobi, S., Dadabhoy, J. and Candido, E. (2019) Hydrogen Peroxide.
In: Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of industrial chemistry, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co., KGaA,
Weinheim (Germany).
PROJECT B (Group numbers: 6,7,8,9): Production of synthetic natural gas (SNG)/ green
methanol from biomass waste

The thermochemical conversion of biomass consists of the use of heat to induce controlled
biomass decomposition that yields different type of products (gaseous, liquid or solid)
depending on the conditions used. Technologies that focus on biomass liquefaction, such as
pyrolysis and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), target the production of liquid biofuels to be
used in existing transport infrastructure (drop-in fuels), having as main application the segments
of the transport sector that are hard to electrify such as maritime and aviation.
Due to the stringent process conditions (temperatures in the order of 250-600 oC and pressures
of 200-300 bar), considerable amounts of combustible gases comprised mainly of CO2 and light
hydrocarbons are obtained upon separation of condensable fractions. The gas is typically used
within the process for heat and power generation, however its high concentration of CO2 and
relatively high upstream pressure makes it an attractive source for the production of electrofuels
that can boost biomass utilization and increase the carbon efficiency of the overall process.

Assignment:
Design a process for the utilization of the gas to produce one of the next products via CO 2
hydrogenation assuming an input of 100 kt/y of gas. One additional requirement is that you
have to include an electricity-driven heat pump in your process design. The following table
shows the gas composition of HTL gas and pyrolysis gas to be used as input. Evaluate the
steps/processes required to obtain the specified product with a purity of 99.9 %.
The possible combinations of feedstock-product are:
• HTL gas to synthetic natural gas (SNG)
• Pyrolysis gas to SNG
• Pyrolysis gas to Methanol
Table 1 Composition of input HTL and pyrolysis gas

mol% HTL [1] Pyrolysis [2]

CO2 72,79 45,44
Hydrogen 17,48 10,84
CO 0,46 33,06
Methane 5,33 9,16
C2+ 3,92 1,5
Total 100 100

Tasks:
• Discuss the need for feedstock purification and choice of separation steps used.
• Assume that the CO2 hydrogenation reaction achieves equilibrium.
• Estimate energy requirements, CO2 conversion (%) and purity achieved.
• Perform preliminary cost estimation using the following parameters.
Value Unit
Purchase MOH reactor (440 kt/y MOH) [3] 2.7 MEUR
equipment cost
Operational Electricity 45 EUR/MWh
Expenses
Natural gas 25 EUR/MWh
Cooling water 1.5 EUR/MWh

Contact+supervision: Prof.dr.ir. Wiebren de Jong, Process & Energy,

[email protected]

References
[1] Jensen CU, Rodriguez Guerrero JK, Karatzos S, Olofsson G, Iversen SB.
Fundamentals of HydrofactionTM: Renewable crude oil from woody biomass. Biomass
Convers Biorefinery 2017;7:495–509. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-017-0248-8.
[2] Zhao C, Jiang E, Chen A. Volatile production from pyrolysis of cellulose,
hemicellulose and lignin. J Energy Inst 2017;90:902–13.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joei.2016.08.004.
[3] Pérez-Fortes M, Schöneberger JC, Boulamanti A, Tzimas E. Methanol synthesis using
captured CO2 as raw material: Techno-economic and environmental assessment. Appl
Energy 2016;161:718–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.07.067.
PROJECT C (Group numbers:10,11,12,13,14,15): Production of adipic acid

Adipic acid is a versatile aliphatic dicarboxylic acid, and one of the largest commodity
chemicals used as an intermediate for producing nylon-6,6. [1]. A novel route for its production
has recently been investigated at TU Eindhoven [3] and the chemical conversion pathway is
depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Reaction pathway part from cyclohexene and hydrogenperoxide to adipic acid [3].

Assignment:
Design a process for the conversion of benzene with hydrogen to cyclohexene that is
subsequently converted with hydrogenperoxide (H2O2, 30 mass% in water) to produce adipic
acid assuming a production capacity of 5% of the world market of adipic acid which is currently
6 million metric tons per year [2]. The specified adipic acid product should have a purity of
99.9 %. Hint: do not use a kinetic model in the reactor, but look in literature for
conversion/yield/selectivity values for this route, or use a chemical reaction equilibrium model
for chemical conversion steps. More information can also be found in [4].

Contact+supervision: Dr.ir. Shahid Ullah Khan, Process & Energy, [email protected]

References

[1] Carothers, W. H. Linear polyamides and their production. U.S. Patent 2130523 A, 1938.
[2] Van De Vyver S and Román-Leshkov Y, Emerging catalytic processes for the production
of adipic acid, Catal Sci Technol 3:1465–1479 (2013).
[3] https://pure.tue.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/21074130/20160509_Shang.pdf
[4] Gürsel, I.V., Wang, Q., Noël, T., and Hessel, V. Process-Design Intensification – Direct
synthesis of adipic acid in flow, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 29:565-571 (2012)
PROJECT D (Group numbers: 16,17,18,19,20,21,22): Simulation of integrated CO2
capture and conversion into syngas

Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies have gained interest as a relatively new CO2
mitigation strategy that benefits both the environment and economy. Particularly, the
electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) toward valuable chemicals and fuels, driven
by solar or wind energy, represents one of the promising CCU approaches. Particularly, CO is
considered as one of the promising products as it can be used as intermediate in downstream
chemical transformations. CO can also be used in combination with hydrogen (forming syngas)
for industrial applications, with an annual global production of approximately 150 Mtonne,
reported in 2018. In this project, a direct utilization of a liquid CO2 capture medium as the
electrolyte for the electrochemical conversion of CO2 has been considered to eliminate the
energy-intensive desorption process in the traditional approach.

Figure 4. Process concept for CO2 capture and direct electrochemical conversion to CO and H2.

In the first step, CO2 from a flue gas stream is absorbed physically and chemically in an absorber
operating at temperature of 40 °C and pressure of 1 atm into a non-aqueous monothanolamine
(MEA) solution: 0.5M MEA solution in Choline Chloride: Ethylene Glycol (1:4) (ChCl:EG).
Then the captured CO2 stream goes to the electrolyser operating at 65°C and 1 atm, where
simultaneously the CO2 is stripped out and converted to CO and H2.

𝐶𝑂2 + 𝑅𝑁𝐻2 ↔ 𝑅𝑁𝐻3 + 𝑅𝑁𝐻𝐶𝑂2 − Absorption and Desorption

2𝐻 + + 2𝑒 −
𝐶𝑂2(𝑔) → 𝐶𝑂(𝑔) +𝐻2 𝑂(𝑙) Reduction

Assignment:
The assignment is to simulate a process system model in two steps: (1) absorption (2) stripping
and conversion. To simplify this process, consider 30 wt% monoethanolamine (MEA) in a
mixture of ethylene glycol and 1-propanol (EG/PrOH, 1:1 vol ratio) as a CO2 capture solvent
and find the physico-chemical properties of the solvent in Bougie et al. research [1].
A coal-fired power plant with a net electrical power of 600 MW and a net efficiency of 40.6 %
can be used as a reference plant. The outlet flue gas in this power plant had a flow rate of 540.1
kg/s and its composition is summarised in Table 1 [2].
Table 2. Composition of the flue gas.

Component Volume fraction (%)

CO2 12
N2 73.3
H2O 8.3
O2 5.5
SO2 0.5

Task:
• Discuss the need for feedstock purification and choice of separation steps used
• Evaluate the process by a sensitivity analysis of the operating conditions (Temperate
of the absorber and stripper, CO2 loading)
• Estimate energy requirements and CO2 conversion (%)
• Perform preliminary technoeconomic assessment and cost estimation[3][4]

Contact+supervision: Ir. Hengameh Farahmandazad, Process & Energy,

[email protected]

References

[1] F. Bougie, D. Pokras, and X. Fan, “Novel non-aqueous MEA solutions for CO2
capture,” Int. J. Greenh. Gas Control, vol. 86, pp. 34–42, 2019.
[2] Y. Qiao et al., “Techno-economic analysis of integrated carbon capture and utilisation
compared with carbon capture and utilisation with syngas production,” Fuel, vol. 332,
p. 125972, 2023, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2022.125972.
[3] D. Singh, E. Croiset, P. L. Douglas, and M. A. Douglas, “Techno-economic study of
CO2 capture from an existing coal-fired power plant: MEA scrubbing vs. O2/CO2
recycle combustion,” Energy Convers. Manag., vol. 44, no. 19, pp. 3073–3091, 2003,
doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0196-8904(03)00040-2.
[4] N. Gao, C. Quiroz-Arita, L. A. Diaz, and T. E. Lister, “Intensified co-electrolysis
process for syngas production from captured CO2,” J. CO2 Util., vol. 43, p. 101365,
2021, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcou.2020.101365.