Thermo-environomic Evaluation of the Ammonia Production

Laurence Tock,* François Maréchal and Matthieu Perrenoud

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering Station 9, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

Within the global challenge of sustainable energy supply and greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, carbon capture and storage and the deployment
of renewable resources are considered as promising solutions. In this study the production of ammonia mainly used in the fertilizer industry and that
is responsible for around 2–3 % of the world greenhouse gas emissions is analyzed. Considering natural gas and biomass as a resource and the option
of CO2 capture and storage, different process configurations are systematically compared with regard to energy, economic and environmental
considerations. A consistent thermo-environonomic optimization approach combining flowsheeting, process integration techniques, economic
performance evaluation, life cycle assessment and multi-objective optimization is applied for the conceptual process design and competitiveness
evaluation. It is highlighted that the quality of the process integration is a key factor for improving the performance by valorizing the heat excess
through electricity cogeneration. Including CO2 mitigation in the ammonia production allows to reduce the emissions but leads to a slight efficiency
decrease due to the energy consumption for the CO2 compression. For the natural gas fed process yielding an energy efficiency around 65 %, the
overall life cycle emissions can be reduced to 0.79 kgCO2/kgNH3 with CO2 capture compared to 1.6 kgCO2/kgNH3 without capture. Considering the
biogenic nature of the carbon in the biomass, the emissions drop to
1.79 kgCO2/kgNH3 for the biomass process having an energy efficiency of 50 %.
The economic competitiveness highly depends on the resource price and the introduction of a carbon tax. This study reveals the potential of the
decarbonization of the fertilizer industry.

Keywords: ammonia, biomass, CO2 capture, energy integration, process design

INTRODUCTION Therefore the objective of this paper is to combine

flowsheeting, energy integration and LCA to systematically

I
n the chemical industry ammonia is a fundamental compound analyze the production of ammonia from fossil and renewable
required for the production of nitrogen-based fertilizers. resources by assessing the potential of CO2 mitigation with
Approximately 157 Mt of ammonia have been consumed in regard to the energy efficiency, the costs and the environmental
2010.[9] More than 90 % of the world’s ammonia consumption is impacts.
manufactured from nitrogen and hydrogen by the catalytic Haber-
Bosch process.[2] The H2 is essentially produced from natural gas THERMO-ENVIRONOMIC OPTIMIZATION METHODOLOGY
by steam reforming and the N2 from air. The large energy
requirement (28–33 GJ/tNH3) and the high CO2 emissions The systematic methodology that is applied follows the one
(1.6 tCO2/tNH3) for the ammonia production[10] are mainly due proposed by Gassner et al.,[6] Gerber et al.[7] and Tock et al.[18]
to the energy and carbon intensive reforming process. combining flowsheeting, energy integration techniques, life cycle
The depletion of fossil fuels and the increase of greenhouse gas assessment (LCA) and economic performance evaluation in a multi-
emissions contributing to the climate change have raised the need objective optimization framework. The main steps are illustrated in
to limit the carbon emissions and to deploy the usage of renewable Figure 1. First candidate technologies are identified and summar-
resources in energy and carbon intensive processes, ammonia ized in a superstructure. Then thermo-environomic models are
production inclusive. Fossil fuel could be substituted by biofuels developed for each unit operation option based on literature data in
whose life cycle emissions will be affected by the use of fertilizers order to compute the chemical and physical transformations and to
for the energy crops. It is therefore important to study the identify the process heat transfer requirements. The models are
decarbonization of the ammonia production. For the ammonia developed in the flowsheeting software Belsim Vali[4] applying a
production, fuel decarbonization by CO2 capture and storage simultaneous resolution method. Based on the simulation results,
(CCS), and the usage of renewable resources, such as biomass, can the energy-integration model optimizes the heat recovery and the
be considered as promising solutions. Several authors have combined fuel, heat and power production by using the heat
already assessed the performance of the ammonia production cascade constraints and a linear programming model minimizing
from biomass in terms of efficiency and life cycle emis- the operating cost.[12] Applying pinch analysis, the optimal process
sions.[1,3,8,16] Potentials for energy efficiency improvements in integration is computed and the process needs are satisfied by
existing plants have been investigated in Panjeshahi et al.,[15] different hot utilities including waste and process gas combustion,
Rafiqul et al.,[16] and Wang et al.[22] Applying pinch analysis and Rankine cycle, gas turbine and cogeneration, and cold utilities
exergy analysis, power savings of 15 % through optimization of
the refrigeration system were revealed in Panjeshahi et al.[15]
However, no consistent optimization with regard to multiple *Author to whom correspondence may be addressed.
criteria, combining energy integration techniques with life cycle E-mail address: laurence.tock@epfl.ch
assessment (LCA) and economic evaluation have been performed Can. J. Chem. Eng. 93:356–362, 2015
so far to assess the potential benefit of CO2 capture and storage in © 2014 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering
DOI 10.1002/cjce.22126
ammonia production processes and compare different resources Published online in Wiley Online Library
and technologies in a systematic manner. (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

356 THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING VOLUME 93, FEBRUARY 2015
 Table 1. Economic assumptions

Parameter Value Parameter Value

Yearly operation 7500 h/y Gas price 9.7 $/GJNG

Interest rate 6% Biomass price 13.8 $/GJBM
Expected lifetime 25 y Electricity price 41 $/GJBM
Natural gas plant size 255 MWth Biomass plant size 380 MWth

The economic performance is evaluated by the capital investment

cost and the total ammonia production costs taking into account
the annualized capital investment and the operation and
maintenance costs. The transportation costs of the raw material
Figure 1. Thermo-environomic modelling approach. have not been included separately in this study, it is assumed that
they are part of the resource purchase price. The sizing and cost
consisting of cooling water and an ammonia refrigeration cycle to correlations are based on literature data.[20,21] The operating costs
cool down below ambient conditions. Using the data from the include the resources purchase, the electricity import, the labour
flowsheet and process integration models, the costs are estimated and maintenance which correspond to 5 % of the investment. The
based on equipment sizing and cost correlations from litera- economic assumptions are summarized in Table 1.
ture.[20,21] By including the life cycle environmental impact The environmental impact of the whole process chain from
assessment (LCIA) in the thermo-economic model according to the resource extraction to the final product (including trans-
the approach described by Gerber et al.,[7] the environmental port) is calculated per kg of NH3 using different indicators: the
impact evaluation takes into account the influence of the process local CO2 emissions, the life cycle Global Warming Potential
design and operation (i.e., consequential LCA). The life cycle (GWP) calculated with the IPCC 07 method and the Impact
inventory data are based on the reference data-sets from 2002 method[11] which assesses the endpoint damages on
Ecoinvent[5] for a Swiss-European context. Finally, the values of different impact categories including resources depletion,
the decision variables (i.e., technology selection and operating human health, ecosystem and climate change. It has to be
conditions) are defined and the trade-offs between the competing noted that the GWP of fossil CO2 emissions is standardized to 1,
objectives like investment and life cycle emissions or energy while for biogenic CO2 emissions the GWP is considered as 0.
efficiency, are assessed by multi-objective optimization techniques Storage of fossil CO2 accounts as zero to GWP, while storage of
and sensitivity analyses. To solve the optimization problem an biogenic CO2 leads to a GWP of
1. The negative balance is due
evolutionary algorithm[13] implemented in Matlab1 is applied. In to the fact that the released CO2 was previously fixed in the
this approach, the multi-objective optimization problem is thus plant as hydrocarbon by photosynthesis. For these calculations,
decomposed in two sub-problems: a master optimization max- the electricity is accounted using the European electricity mix
imising the energy efficiency and minising the cost, respectively the of the Union for the Coordination of the Transmission of
environmental performance by applying an evolutionary algo- Electricity (UCTE mix: 523gCO2eq/kWhe) for the consumption
rithm, and a slave optimization problem (i.e., energy integration and the substitution of the electricity produced. The calculation
MILP problem) minimizing the operating cost under the heat and method follows the methodology described in Gerber et al.[7]
power cascade constraints. The slave optimization is responsible for and takes into account the sizing of the equipment and the use
the best possible layout of the process and heat exchanger network of support materials like catalysts as a function of the decision
for given operating conditions defined by the master optimization. variables.
In the optimization the energy efficiency is maximized and the
Performance Indicators costs, respectively the environmental impact are minimized with
regard to the decision variables which are mainly the process
The performance of the different process configurations is
operating conditions reported in Table 2. The plant scale is kept
evaluated by several indicators for an average Swiss – European
constant in the optimization (255 MWth of natural gas and 380
context. The first law energy efficiency etot (Equation (1)) is the
MWth of biomass respectively). To include the environmental
ratio between the energetic value of the products (i.e., ammonia
impact in the optimization, the single score impact assessed with
and electricity exports if any) and the resources (i.e., natural gas or
the Impact 2002þ method was chosen as objective function and
wood, and electricity import if any) on a lower heating value basis.
the endpoint indicators are considered for the final decision
In this expression, the electricity is accounted for its energy value
making and comparison of process options.
without considering the way it is produced.

_
Dh0NH3  m
PROCESS DESCRIPTION
etot ¼ þ E_ Dh0feed  m
_þ _þ
feed þ E ð1Þ
NH3
Ammonia is primarily produced from hydrogen and nitrogen.
The major process steps are N2 and H2 generation, methanation,
The specific energy consumption of the ammonia production ammonia synthesis and purification. The process layout is
(E_ ton [GJ/t]) is computed by Equation (2). illustrated in Figure 2 and the key operating conditions are
reported in Table 2. H2 can be produced from several fossil and
_ renewable resources. Here the conventional natural gas reform-
Dh0feed  m_þ
feed þ DE
E_ ton ¼
ð2Þ ing process is compared with the emerging biomass (i.e., wood)
m_ NH3 gasification process.

VOLUME 93, FEBRUARY 2015 THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 357
 Table 2. Operating conditions of the process units and feasible range shift reaction, the gas consists mainly of H2 and CO2. The CO2 is first
for optimization removed by chemical absorption with amines (i.e., MEA) or by
physical absorption (i.e., Selexol or Rectisol). The H2 is further purified
Parameter Nominal Range
by pressure swing adsorption (PSA). In the carbon capture config-
Methanation [K] 530 523–873 urations, the CO2 flow is compressed to 11 MPa for transport and long
PMethanation [MPa] 3 2.5–3.5 term storage in geological formations. The H2 production model is
Tcondensation [K] 275 250–330 described in more detail in Tock et al.[17] The heat requirement of the
Pcondensation [MPa] 0.8 0.1–2 endothermic steam methane reforming is satisfied by heat recovery
Pcompression, 1 [MPa] 0.8 0.1–2 and by the combustion of waste process gases and if needed of natural
Pcompression, 2 [MPa] 9 6–16 gas to close the energy balance. With SMR, the H2 production process
Pcompression, 3 ¼ Psynthesis [MPa] 28 15–30
with CO2 capture reaches an energy efficiency around 80 % according
H2/N2 ratio [
] 3 1.5–4.5
to the preliminary study made by Tock et al.[17]
Treactants [K] 313 300–373
Purge [%] 10 5–30 H2 from biomass
Split [%] 10 5–20
Tquench [K] 393 350–450
In this configuration, the hydrogen is produced by thermochem-
Tsynthesis [K] 723 550–800 ical gasification of wood. The considered wood has an humidity of
Tflash1 [K] 295 273–500 50x2009;% and the following dry weight composition: 51.1 % C,
Pflash1 [MPa] 28 2–30 43 % O, 5.7 % H and 0.2 % N. The major process steps are wood
Tflash2 [K] 377 300–450 drying, indirectly heated fast internal fluidized bed gasification
Pflash2 [MPa] 10 5–16 (FICFB) with steam oxidant, gas cleaning, gas treatment by
Tflash3 [K] 368 300–450 reforming and water gas shift followed by H2 separation and
Pflash3 [MPa] 6 2–20 purification. The gasification takes place at around 0.1 MPa and
Trecup.1 [K] 400 300–500 1000 K. The gas treatment and purification technologies are the
Precup.1 [MPa] 2 1–10 same as in the natural gas fed process. The high temperature heat
Trecup.2 [K] 264 250–350 required for the gasification and the reforming is satisfied by the
Precup.2 [MPa] 1.5 1–10
combustion of process off gas and if necessary by burning part of
TNH3 [K] 293 283–313
the process syngas. The removed CO2 can optionally be com-
PNH3 [MPa] 1 0.1–1.5
pressed to 11 MPa for subsequent transport and sequestration. In
this case, the captured carbon comes from the biogenic CO2
H2 and N2 Production assimilated in the biomass by photosynthesis and can conse-
quently lead to a low, zero or even negative CO2 balance. This
H2 from natural gas process has been previously modelled and studied in Tock
et al.[17,19] reporting an overall efficiency up to 60 % for the H2
Large scale H2 plants typically use natural gas as a feedstock. The
production process with CO2 capture and when including the life
process steps include desulphurization, steam methane reforming
cycle emissions a global warming potential (GWP) in the order of
SMR (Equation (3)), water gas shift WGS (Equation (4)) and H2

90 kgCO2,eq/GJH2.
purification.
N2 generation
0
CH4 þ H2 Ofi CO þ 3H2 D hr ¼ 206kJ=mol ð3Þ Nitrogen is extracted from air in an air separation unit. The energy
0 consumption and the equipment costs for the N2 generation are
CO þ H2 Ofi CO2 þ H2 D hr ¼
41kJ=mol ð4Þ estimated on the basis of a pressure swing absorption unit and
included in the performance evaluation. For the power con-
In the reforming step, methane (CH4) is reacted with water (steam to sumption the data are taken from MVS Engineering[14] while the
carbon ration of 2.5–3) to produce H2 and CO. The endothermic costs are estimated on the basis of cost correlations.[20,21]
reforming is typically operated at 1–4 MPa and around 1173 K in the
presence of a Nickel catalyst. The H2 concentration is then increased by Ammonia Synthesis
two shift reaction steps, one operating at high temperature (HTS: 523– Ammonia is typically produced by the catalytic reaction
683 K) and the other at low temperature (LTS: 423–523 K). After the Equation (5) (Fe-catalyst) between H2 and N2 at elevated

Figure 2. Process superstructure of ammonia process options.

358 THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING VOLUME 93, FEBRUARY 2015
temperature (130–230 K) and pressures above 10 MPa.[2] Since this Table 3. Ammonia production performance results
Haber-Bosch reaction has a low conversion efficiency of around
Parameter Natural gas Biomass
20–30 %, the unconverted part of the reactants is recycled and
mixed with fresh gas in the synthesis loop. The produced ammonia Production [t NH3/d] 916 1187
is separated from the non-converted gas by cooling and con- etot [%] 65.6 50.6
densation and is further purified at high pressure. In order to avoid Eton[GJ/tNH3] 28.3 36.6
þ
the accumulation of inerts in the loop that would decrease the E_ consumption [GJe/tNH3] 5.7 9.9


overall conversion, a purge stream is taken out of the cycle after NH3 E_ production [GJe/tNH3] 1.5 0.97
condensation. This purge corresponds to about 10–15 % of the CO2 capture rate [%] 67 74
recycled gas stream. The purge is scrubbed with water to recover CO2 emissions [tCO2/tNH3] 0.43 0
NH3 and is then sent either to a burner or a H2 recovery system. The Total costs [$/tNH3] 650 968
synthesis reaction (Equation (5)) being exothermic, the process
excess heat can be valorized by high pressure steam production for
electricity cogeneration allowing to satisfy part of the compression Since the process temperature can drop below ambient conditions
requirements and in certain cases to export steam or electricity. during the purification step, a refrigeration cycle using ammonia
as refrigerant has been included to satisfy the cooling utility.
0
3H2 þ N 2 fi 2NH3 D hr ¼
92:2kJ=mol ð5Þ
PROCESS PERFORMANCE COMPARISON
The residues of CO and CO2 in the H2-rich fuel, being poisonous The performance of two different ammonia production process
for the Haber-Bosch reaction catalyst, a methanation step is configurations using natural gas or biomass as a resource and
included before the ammonia synthesis itself. The methanation capturing CO2 are compared. The plant scales correspond to
(Equation (6)) and the reverse WGS (Equation (4)) take place at 255 MWth of natural gas and 380 MWth of biomass respectively.
around 530 K and 3 MPa in a reactor filled with a Ni-catalyst. At the These optimized configurations reported in Table 3 result from
reactor outlet, the carbon oxides concentration is below 5 ppm and sensitivity analyses and multi-objective optimizations of the
the produced water is removed by condensation. operating conditions with regard to the two objectives: energy
efficiency maximization and costs minimization. The configu-
0
CO þ 3H2 fi CH4 þ H2 O D hr ¼
206kJ=mol ð6Þ rations have been selected in the Pareto optimal set of solutions
and correspond to a capture rate around 70 %.

Synthesis loop modelling Energy Integration

In the NH3 synthesis loop model, H2 is first purified in a The slave energy integration problem is solved as a subproblem of
methanation step, then the H2 and N2 are mixed at isothermal the master optimization. Applying the pinch analysis, the heat
conditions (0.8 MPa, 294 K) with an H2/N2 ratio of around 3. The recovery in the process is maximized and the excess heat is
pressure of the ammonia synthesis being in the range of 10–30 MPa, valorized by cogeneration of electricity in a steam network. The
the H2/N2 mixture is first compressed by a two staged compression difference in the thermal energy demands is illustrated by the
with intercooling. After the first compression stage, the pressure integrated composite curves in Figures 3 and 4. In both ammonia
(Pcompression,2 ¼ 9 MPa) is about one third of the synthesis pressure production processes, the energy requirement for the endothermic
(Pcompression,3¼ 28 MPa). The considered isentropic compression reforming and gasification is satisfied by the combustion of
efficiency is 85 %. After the compression, the isothermal mixing process and waste streams in a gas turbine for heat and power
with the non-converted gases takes place at Treactants (313 K) and cogeneration. The refrigeration demand is satisfied by cooling
Psynthesis (28 MPa). The fed gas is split into two streams; 90 % of the water and a refrigeration cycle. The heat excess is valorized by
flow is heated up to the synthesis temperature (Tsynthesis ¼ 723 K) electricity cogeneration in a steam network, illustrated in
and is sent to the first reactor stage, the remaining 10 % of the gas Figures 3 and 4. The difference in terms of the overall energy
feed is set to a lower temperature (Tquench ¼ 393 K) and is used to efficiency is explained by the difference in the thermal energy
cool down the gas leaving the first reactor stage. After the reaction
the product stream is condensed in the condensation column to
recover liquid ammonia (Tflash1, Pflash1). 10 % of the gases are then
purged, the remaining flow being recycled in the first stage of the
reactor. The ammonia synthesis reaction itself is modelled by a
series of three equilibrium reactors which can operate at different
temperatures. Each reactor consists of a horizontal vessel, in which
the reaction takes place at equilibrium, and a heat exchanger that
recovers the exothermic reaction heat in order to produce high
pressure steam (10–14 MPa) in adjacent waste-heat boilers. To
reach a NH3 purity of 99.9 %mol, the product stream is treated in a
series of flash columns.
The waste streams are expanded in turbines in order to recover
mechanical and thermal energy. Finally, the waste stream and the
purified liquid ammonia are sent to a recuperation stage to recover
liquid ammonia at standard storage conditions (TNH3 ¼ 293 K and
PNH3 ¼ 1 MPa). The waste streams can be burnt in order to satisfy Figure 3. Composite curve with steam network integration for the
the process energy demand. ammonia process using natural gas as a resource.

VOLUME 93, FEBRUARY 2015 THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 359
 Figure 6. Ammonia production performance results: Total cost build-up.

Figure 4. Composite curve with steam network integration for the

ammonia process using natural gas as a resource.

demands on the one hand and by the differences in the net

electricity consumption on the other hand. The differences in
electricity consumption and production is illustrated by the power
balance in Figure 5. Electricity is mainly consumed for the fuel
compression to the synthesis pressure, for CO2 compression and
for the refrigeration cycle. Some electricity is produced by the
steam network and by the gas turbines(GT) burning the waste and
offgas streams. The lower performance of the biomass fed process
can be explained by the limited biomass conversion efficiency, the
larger high temperature heat requirement for the gasification and
the low excess heat valorization by electricity cogeneration in a
Figure 7. Environmental performance: IPCC07 method GWP 100 years.
steam network. Moreover, the electricity consumption is higher
(Figure 5) due to the heat pumping and to the higher CO2 capture
rate leading to a larger CO2 compression consumption. Con-
sequently, the net electricity import is twice as high as for the annualized capital investment is slightly lower for the biomass
natural gas fed process and the efficiency about 15 %-points lower. configuration, the larger resources and electricity consumption
For the natural gas fed process with 67 % of CO2 capture, the lead to a higher total cost. The costs assessed here are comparable
specific energy requirement of 28.3 GJ/tNH3 is in the range of the to the one reported by Bartels[3] being 495–689$/tNH3 for ammonia
values calculated for systems without CO2 capture (28–33GJ/ production from natural gas and 488–1519$/tNH3 for first
tNH3) reported by IFA.[10] This shows that CO2 capture is not generation biomass plants. The economic profit highly depends
penalizing the specific energy consumption but is promising. In on the resources and electricity prices. The introduction of a
fact, since CO2 has to be removed anyway to purify the H2, the carbon tax would be beneficial for capturing CO2 in the ammonia
energy penalty of compressing the separated CO2 to 11 MPa for production and switching to renewable resources. The introduc-
transport and storage is not penalizing. tion of a carbon tax of 35$/tCO2 would lead to a decrease of the

Economic Performance
The difference in terms of productivity results also in a difference
in the ammonia production costs (Figure 6). Even if the specific

Figure 5. Ammonia production performance results: Power balance-

Electricity consumption by the H2 and NH3 process and electricity Figure 8. Environmental performance: Impact 2002 method (single
production by the gas turbines and steam network. score).

360 THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING VOLUME 93, FEBRUARY 2015
 A B

C D

Figure 9. Environmental performance of natural gas fed process: Impact 2002 method –4 endpoints: A) Climate change, B) Resources, C) Human health
and D) Ecosystem quality.

production costs of 72$/tNH3 for the ammonia production from show the impact of the fossil natural gas on the resources
biomass due to the economic profit of capturing biogenic CO2. As depletion compared to the renewable biomass resource, and the
the NH3 production from biomass leads to a negative carbon influence on climate change impact. Looking at the four different
balance the introduction of a carbon tax results in an income due to endpoints categories (Figure 9) the different contributions are
the avoided CO2 emissions. clearly revealed for the natural gas fed process. The extraction of
the natural gas and the electricity (UCTE mix) consumed by the
Environmental Impacts process are the major contributions. The biomass fed process has
a larger impact on the ecosystem due to the wood cultivation and
The advantage of using a renewable resource and of capturing
due to the contribution of the rape methyl ether (RME) used in
CO2 is clearly reflected by the environmental performance over
the syngas cleaning step. However, the overall environmental
the whole life cycle, from the resource extraction to the final
impact is beneficial compared to the natural gas fed ammonia
product, reported in Figures 7–9. In the natural gas fed ammonia
production due to the benefit of capturing biogenic CO2 and due
process with 67 % of CO2 capture, the global warming potential
to the lower impact on the fossil fuel depletion. When using
is reduced by 51 % from 1.6 kgCO2/kgNH3 without CO2 capture to
palm biodiesel instead of RME, the ecosystem impact could be
0.79 kgCO2/kgNH3 with CO2 capture and sequestration (Figure 7).
reduced by 35 %.
When biomass is used as a resource, the emitted CO2 which is
These results show that using biomass and capturing CO2 in the
biogenic does not contribute to the GWP and consequently the
ammonia production is a promising alternative for decarbonising
emissions of the ammonia production are only about 20 % of the
the fertilizer industry. However, a sustainable exploitation of the
reference case (0.3 kgCO2/kgNH3). If part of this biogenic CO2 is
biomass has to be ensured.
captured and stored, it will have a negative contribution to the
GWP and consequently will lead to a negative CO2 balance of

1.7 kgCO2/kgNH3. In addition to the climate change impact, the CONCLUSIONS
impact on the resources, ecosystem and human health are Within the objective of reducing the CO2 emissions from the
assessed by the Impact 2002 indicator (Figure 8 single score and fertilizer industry, different ammonia production process config-
Figure 9 endpoints). The results reported in Figure 8 clearly urations have been evaluated here in detail by taking into account

VOLUME 93, FEBRUARY 2015 THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 361
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Electricity production, kW [22] Y. Wang, J. Du, J. Wu, G. He, G. Kuang, X. Fan, P. Yao, S. Lu,
m _ Mass flow, kg/s P. Li, J. Tao, Y. Wan, Z. Kuang, Y. Tian, Appl. Energy 2003,
T Temperature, K 76, 467.
P Pressure, Mpa

Greek Symbols Manuscript received January 27, 2014; revised manuscript received

D hr
0
Reaction enthalpy, kJ/mol June 30, 2014; accepted for publication July 7, 2014.
Dh0 Lower heating value, kJ/mol
etot Energy Efficiency, %

REFERENCES
[1] S. Ahlgren, A. Baky, S. Bernesson, Å. Nordberg, O. Norén,
Bioresour. Technol. 2008, 99, 8034.

362 THE CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING VOLUME 93, FEBRUARY 2015