A techno-economic assessment for optimizing methanol production from woody biomass for maritime transport in Sweden

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master_Conti_Davide_2019.pdf (4.33 MB)

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Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
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Date

2019-10-21

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Mcode

Degree programme

Nordic Master Programme in Innovative and Sustainable Energy Engineering (ISEE)

Language

en

Pages

59+15

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Abstract

The maritime transport sector is currently highly dependent on oil-based fuels. International regulations enforce tight limits regarding NOx emissions from the exhaust gases and maximum sulphur content in the fuel, enhancing the sector interest towards the development of cleaner alternative fuels. A transition to biomass-based liquid fuels is of interest as a solution for reducing pollutant emissions and for CO2 emissions mitigation. This thesis investigates the techno-economic and environmental impacts of methanol production from solid wood residues in maritime transport of Sweden. Methanol seems to be a promising alternative to heavy and light fossil oils as maritime fuel, and sawmills residues are an abundant resource in Sweden. The study considers the entire methanol production chain, from assessing the availability of sawmill by-products until delivering the methanol to the Swedish ports. The analysis considers two methanol blending scenarios until year 2035, i.e., M5 and M25. Four possible plant sizes are considered, 100, 200, 300 and 400 MW of biomass fuel thermal input. The production plant is modelled in Aspen Plus to determine the material and energy streams involved in the process and to obtain the cost and efficiency of producing methanol at the synthesis plant. An optimization model developed in GAMS is used to locate the methanol production plants, so to minimize the cost of the production chain. The results include the final methanol cost and an estimation of the CO2 emissions reduction potential from replacing oil fuels with methanol for the assumed scenarios.

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Supervisor

Santasalo-Aarnio, Annukka

Thesis advisor

Maeda Harahap, Fumi

Keywords

gasification, maritime transport, methanol, woody biomass, Sweden

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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201910275815

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