Meeting on 01/20/11

First meeting with Dennis O' Brien

Purpose of meeting:

Get to know mentor

Determine what stages we have to go through during the process design

Determine what are we going to produce in this project

Meet with the other group and determine the process of two groups working together

Meeting:

Debating on producing Diesel or Methanol

Diesel from gasification has the following advantages:

Clean fuel with a cetane number of around 100 achieved easily

No aromatics or contaminants

A relatively green process

BUT Diesel requires Fischer Tropsch process which is extremely complicated and

thus ruled out.

Methanol production is another option with the following advantages:

Good Fuel

Easy to store

Easy way to store hydrogen for future use

Very flexible product, can be a building block for several other useful chemicals

Simple process to make

The syngas will be produced using MSW through a plasma gasifier

Things needed to be determined for the process

Set basis, a production rate of 5000 tons/day would be good

Feed ratio

Competing processes

why is it a good process? Storage is better

why do we choose to use MSW why not natural gas, coal, biomass

think of other

Reactors

Separation of products

Market outlook

Plant seals? even though it is to be determined down the road but think about this.

Since Methanol is volatile it will probably need a double seal.

Material and Energy Balances

Units in the plant, what units are needed to get the plant working

Other things required/side notes

We must take notes during meetings with Dennis

We must upload notes on internal meeting

Meeting on 1/27/11

Date: 1/27/11

Location: 525 W. Monroe Suite 1350 Chicago, IL

Attendees: Dennis O' Brien, Daniyal Qamar, Scott Morgan, Sukhjinder Singh, Brian

Mottel, Priya Chetty

Purpose:

Choose between high pressure/low pressure reaction conditions

Come up with and assign tasks for all team members

Develop a basic block flow diagram and units needed

Meeting:

Since 4500 psi is very high pressure and is in the gun barrel range we need to go for

the low pressure process.

o This will save on starting costs, maintenance, pumps, and energy

o Save on compressor costs

o Decide between screw compressors or reciprocal compressors

Determine: Feed -> Reaction -> Separation -> Storage.

Compressors for the syngas, find out if there are any other components in the feed gas

For the reaction use a multiple bed split feed reactor.

o We have to locate all the methanol plants in the US and find out what kind of

technology they are using.

o Look up patents uploaded and learn from their teaching sections.

o Possibly find a code that can calculate the products from a reactor.

o Do we need water for this reaction?

If we do, then take care of water purification: GE, Viola, and NALCO are some

companies

Temperature and Pressure

For the separations what kind of columns do we need, do we have to take care of

azeotropes how much water is produced in the reactions? Drying of the products

Duties:

Brian and Daniyal:

Reaction Conditions:

Reactor

Feed

Products

Scott:

Compressor:

How many do we need

What kind

Sukh:

Water Purification

Method

Equipment

Cost

Priya:

Economics

Equipment cost

product cost details

by products and their costs

Meeting Notes 2/4/11

Location: CEB 850 S Clinton Chicago, IL

Attendees: Brian Mottel, Sukhjinder Singh, Scott Morgan, Daniyal Qamar

Use of ICI Synetix Reactor

For Monday 2/7/2011

Priya:

Feed

Ratios (what ratios are need for the reactor

Look into Slurry reactor

Find info on low pressure methanol reaction

Find reaction conditions

Are there any companies in the world that are using this process?

Scott and Daniyal:

Reaction

All side reactions

Selectivity

Conversions of the reaction(s)

How many reactors are needed for the necessary product?

Reaction conditions (50-70 atm, 270 C)

Brian and Sukh:

Products

By products from methanol synthesis

Selectivity and reaction conditions for by products

Amount of product (3000-5000 ton/day)

We also decided to use a rough basis of 1000 tons/day of clean syngas for the mas and

energy balances

Look into how to purge/separate H2 and CO from any part of the reaction process.

Group Presentation 1

1/25/11

This was brought up several times but what incentive does group Delta have to give

syngas at a certain pressure?

What is it in for Delta to give our syngas at our needed pressure?

Our process is at high pressure (which we talked to Dennis about and decided at 1500

psi)

What is the price to transfer clean syngas to our section of the plant? (How much does

piping cost and what kind of piping do we need for the given pressure?)

Low pressure means big/large compressor and it's too dangerous

Higher alcohols are produced from multiple distillations, is there a market for the by

products?

Is it possible or plausible to treat the by-products as a waste material?

Look into high end by-products and methane.

What are some of the uses of the high end by-products and the efficiences associated

with this.

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Meeting Notes 2/10/11

Location: CEB 850 S Clinton Chicago, IL

Attendees: Brian Mottel, Sukhjinder Singh, Scott Morgan, Priya Chetty, Daniyal Qamar

Purpose:

Progress on the material balance

Quick overview and sections completed and overall direction of the project

Obstacles confronted and methods being implemented

Present process flow scheme diagram and areas of improvement

Meeting:

Utilize ICI multiple feed reactor to maintain optimum temperature

Neglect balance material balance over the multiple feed reactor just a dicussion

for presention

Overall scheme reactor > separator > distillation column

Use simple, two stage compressor (3 to 1 compression ratio)

Compression of syngas determined to be 300psi

Max heat exchanger pressure 300psi

Still researching amount of byproducts in rxn

Determine selectivity conversion on side reactions and ideal catalyst

Meeting on 2/24/2011

Date: 2/24/11

Location: 525 W. Monroe Suite 1350 Chicago, IL

Attendees: Dennis O' Brien, Daniyal Qamar, Scott Morgan, Sukhjinder Singh, Priya

Chetty

Purpose:

Discuss resume and insight into what to include

Project abstract

Advise on using Aspen

Obtaining data on the Reactor

Expectations on the next presentation

Meeting:

Resume

o Neglect mediocre points

o Include vital skills

o Computer program

o Languages

o Overall GPA with well rounded activities

o Research experience and Internships

o Cover Letter

o Taylor to the target

Abstract:

o good- objective title and explanation on why undertaking this project

o suggested to condense the sentences and reduce word length

o have Delta edit the Abstract

Reactor

two Treaters- water removal

two fractionators (RTL)

assume conversion reactor

rough reflux

research published literature to obtain values

search Aspen and DOE website to gain insight on size and data

use Aspen to estimate based on model then go back and research if something doesn’t

match

hand calculated mole balance for efficiency then energy balance

Kinetics (best precursor for data)

Look at Aspen website

*overall conversion factors:

75 btu/lb hydrocarbon (petroleum industry)- has 1 stage rxn in reactor

500 btu/lb methanol

Vapor phase rxn (300psi)

find critical temperature and pressure for product and reactant component

verify using additional research

Material balance refinement

use patent data for columns

Separator

know TR from PR > (T=250°C P= 300psi)

quench (crack quench) > use water or methanol – shift reaction

break multiple reactor

note syngas component will be in liquid thus pressure issue

Reverse Turbo expander- utilize from separator (high pressure )to obtain two phase

drops temperature

creates shaft work –energy can be used somewhere else

uses minimum HP compression

Tower

30psi

condense water or air based on pressure

note vapor has low pressure

Multistage compressor

Use cooling water (90°C) – eliminates need for cooling tower

If liquid stream goes to reactor then don’t cool it

If using quench method- cool the quench stream

Process scheme

1st > flash> recycle

2nd > distillation- cool and condense methanol- (bottom contains methanol and

heavy alcohols)

Address azeotrope (methanol + water) – separation method

Membrane separation v. sev’s (requires drying via drying column)

Gasifiers

Treat as black box

Purge stream component elimination – CO2, H2, and CO (can assume whatever

concentration needed to keep steady state)

CO2 at 1500psi -use selexol (CO2 can be reduced by approximately 85%)

H2 -use membrane separation based on selectivity

Recycle stream

Use fixed rule

Use splitter in row configuration

Power point suggestion

Make slides to answer question addressed on the last presentation

Progress updates

Wiki updates needed

List assumptions make

Economics

Apply aspen economics then verify with published material

Gain vendor quotes (capital cost estimates) on towers

Reactor and compressor since customized quotes will vary

Group Presentation #3

3/8/2011

Compressing to 1200 psi- what type of compressor is needed and how to get the heat

out?

Compressors do not like 500 F either in or out, so we need to cool it before it gets to

them.

There are 2 kinds of compressors that we will need to use most likely, so Dennis will

talk to us about those.

36.0% IRR is way too high so it raises a flag of concern. Need to go through the

economics and lower the IRR.

$1.37/gallon for methanol is from research and seems to be the correct market value.

$6/ MM BTU is for natural gas, and this value is way too low for syngas. Need to talk

to Delta and figure out a good price for the syngas.

Waste streams- where do they go and what do we need to do with them?

Liquid wastes- what do we need to do with all of them?

Water disposal- the water will be contaminated and will need to be treated. Find the

associated cost with this treatment? (Scott can probably find this from his Dad)

Find out what to do with the compressor discharge.

Cost is affected by pressure drop so go through process and find all of the pressure

drops

Show Q in term of Work terms. Can show both at the same time. Easier to see what

kind of power is needed for the equipment.

The heat exchanger is very different than the compressor in terms of power/energy

Turbo gives off electricity, what do we plan on doing with that and how do we use it?

In a energy sink/load diagram have pieces of equipment that gives off heat next to

what needs that heat.

Lump together pieces that need work from one another so there is less space between

the equipment.

Floating room tank for methanol storage?? MeOH sucks of water so this tank will not

work. Need to find what storage tank is best for storage of MeOH.

Make sure that the storage tank is feasible.

Reactor price is still not correct, so we need to refine this by next time.

On the next presentation, have pictures of the internal of our reactor (inside pieces),

that make it productive and efficient

Purge off of the recycle, huge CO2 buildup. Find out how to do this since a

membrane will not work will, since it would create the lose of MeOH,.

Meeting Minutes

Meeting 04/24/11

Attendees: Scott Morgan, Dennis O’Brein, Daniyal Qamar, Sukhjinder Singh

Poster: Make it Green and economical – make sure that audience knows that.

No storage tanks for syngas since that is too expensive and dangerous because of

carbon monoxide.

Updated Dennis on where we are on our report and what parts are left to do

Discussed the significance of IRR, NPV and how these numbers change.

Group Presentation #4

4/5/2011

What are we doing with the purge stream? It is nasty with its composition. Could

use thermal oxidizer. It is pressurized so it could be sent to a gas turbine.

Put flare on plant layout. Might need ground flare due to location.

Adam will present flares/utilities next week.

Ground flare has storage and residence time. Can achieve efficiency.