TY - JOUR
T1 - Developing a novel gasification-based sludge-to-methanol utilization process and exergy-economic-environmental (3E) analysis
AU - Shi, Tao
AU - Liu, Yue
AU - Yang, Ao
AU - Sun, Shirui
AU - Shen, Weifeng
AU - Ren, Jingzheng
N1 - Funding Information:
The work described in this paper was supported by the grant from the Research Committee of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University under student account code RK3P and was also financially supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council for Early Career Scheme (Grand No. 25208118, Project ID. P0006219, Funding Body Ref. No. PolyU 252081/18E).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/5/15
Y1 - 2022/5/15
N2 - Sewage sludge is a common waste from wastewater treatment plants in Hong Kong and conventional treatment ways like the landfilling method has been gradually abandoned considering the environmental impacts and costly land. Searching for integrating processes to well treat the sludge simultaneously achieve the energy recovery can be a good alternative way. Therefore, process design and simulation of a gasification-based sludge to methanol (STM) production was proposed in this work. It considered major subsections such as gasification, power generation, absorption, methanol synthesis, and distillation. Followed by the sensitivity analysis to optimize operational parameters, economic, environmental, and exergy (3E) analysis of STM process was conducted. The economic estimation revealed the methanol production cost is 579.62$/ton and the sludge disposal cost is 39.58$/ton. The calculated internal rate of return (IRR) of the process is 10.20% and 5.48%, respectively with a subsidy of 20$/ton sludge and without any support. Moreover, it was found the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission was 3.21 kg eq.CO2/kg methanol and overall exergy efficiency was 37.92%. The current work implies the great potential of STM treatment strategy, which can serve as a reference for the future sludge treatment planning.
AB - Sewage sludge is a common waste from wastewater treatment plants in Hong Kong and conventional treatment ways like the landfilling method has been gradually abandoned considering the environmental impacts and costly land. Searching for integrating processes to well treat the sludge simultaneously achieve the energy recovery can be a good alternative way. Therefore, process design and simulation of a gasification-based sludge to methanol (STM) production was proposed in this work. It considered major subsections such as gasification, power generation, absorption, methanol synthesis, and distillation. Followed by the sensitivity analysis to optimize operational parameters, economic, environmental, and exergy (3E) analysis of STM process was conducted. The economic estimation revealed the methanol production cost is 579.62$/ton and the sludge disposal cost is 39.58$/ton. The calculated internal rate of return (IRR) of the process is 10.20% and 5.48%, respectively with a subsidy of 20$/ton sludge and without any support. Moreover, it was found the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission was 3.21 kg eq.CO2/kg methanol and overall exergy efficiency was 37.92%. The current work implies the great potential of STM treatment strategy, which can serve as a reference for the future sludge treatment planning.
KW - Sludge gasification
KW - Waste to energy
KW - Exergy analysis
KW - GHG emission
KW - Internal rate of return
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019689042200396X
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128164925&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.enconman.2022.115600
DO - 10.1016/j.enconman.2022.115600
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0196-8904
VL - 260
JO - Energy Conversion and Management
JF - Energy Conversion and Management
M1 - 115600
ER -