Chemical Process for the Production of Methanol with Carbon Capture (CO2) Integrating the Concept of Electrification by Heat Pump and Use of Renewable Energy

The electrification of industrial processes offers sustainable opportunities for reducing carbon footprints and enhancing energy efficiency in the chemical industry. This paper presents the technical and environmental evaluation (life cycle assessment) of a proposed process for methanol production from the conversion of a conventional process to produce gray hydrogen by SMR technology at a plant located in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia. The new process incorporates the concept of industrial electrification including a heat pump (HP) system with the use of propane as a working fluid for the distillation and separation system of the water–methanol mixture. The process includes the use of photovoltaic energy (PV) as a thermal supply mechanism for the methanol production process and carbon capture utilization (CCU). The proposed process is compared with a reference methanol production process that uses a dry and wet conversion mechanism. The results obtained using the HYSYS V12.1 simulation software allow identifying a 5% improvement in the performance for methanol production and a reduction in energy consumption of between 30 and 53%, which provides important perspectives on the overall energy efficiency of the process with a significant contribution to the decarbonization (−62%) of the methanol synthesis and production process.