Identification of Optimal Gas Conversion Strategies Using a Process Systems Engineering Approach

Hydrocarbon resources can be monetized through various routes as fuels or other chemicals. The demand for such products and energy is expected to increase with world population increases. At the same time, more stringent environmental issues must be met and a trend to embed elements of circular economies into monetization strategies. Ambitious carbon dioxide emission reduction targets to avoid dangerous climate change effects and ensure sustainability for the future generations is one such example. Monetizing gas under such constraints will require a wide variety of existing and emerging technology options to be considered in determining optimal monetization strategies. Hence, the development of an integrated holistic approach to systematically screen through the many possible strategic options - across multiple feedstock, many conversion routes, products, intermediates, and emissions - is crucial for many countries with natural resource centric economies and as well as for energy companies.

We will present research into a systematic, optimization-based approach for the systematic screening of optimal gas monetization options considering multiple feedstock, conversion processes, product choices, intermediates and emissions, including but not limited to natural gas, energy, value added products, as well as waste such as carbon dioxide. The approach follows a novel problem representation and results in a structural resource management network optimization problem. The work focusses on industrial processing clusters and their integration with surrounding regional energy systems. The proposed method will optimize raw material usage, energy requirements, and power requirements across industrial parks to identify those strategies, which maximizing profitability while meeting emissions constraints. The management of these resources can have multi purposes such as economic diversification or minimizing emissions. The work develops a model that produces the best route to integrate the resources within an industrial city under desired footprint constraints, resource limitation, or an economic value. A case study example will be solved to illustrate the method and outline strategic choices considering sets of feedstock and product choices.