Proposal of a natural gas-based polygeneration system for power and methanol production

A new kind of natural gas-based polygeneration system for methanol and power production is proposed in this paper. With the sequential connection between chemical production and power generation, the new system adopts innovative integration of partial-reforming and partial-recycle scheme in methanol synthesis subsystem. To reveal the characteristics of the new system, exegetic comparisons between the new system and a reference polygeneration system with full-reforming and once through methanol synthesis scheme have been carried out. Results indicate that the new system can save energy about 6 percentages versus single product systems. By the aid of graphical exergy analysis methodology, the specific information on internal phenomena of key processes was illustrated. The analysis shows that it is the synergetic combination of partial-reforming and partial-recycle schemes that makes the significant contribution to the performance improvement, and plays the most important role in system integration.