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DOI: 10.3303/CET1439083
In this study, the multi-product carbon footprint evaluation method (MPCE), which was proposed by our
team previous work, has been applied to assess the carbon emission characteristic of the low-rank coalbased acetylene system. The system boundary was firstly determined. Then the data, such as mass and
energy balance, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission factors and global warming potential coefficients, were
extracted from the simulation results. Based on these data, the comprehensive carbon emissions of each
operation unit and the system were figured out. The comprehensive carbon emissions of each operation
unit are 6,796.5 kg-CO2e/h, 107.1 kg-CO2e/h, 3,825.7 kg-CO2e/h, 3,310.2 kg-CO2e/h, 155.1 kg-CO2e/h,
539.0 kg-CO2e/h, 88.0 kg-CO2e/h, 124.8 kg-CO2e/h, respectively, and that of the system is 14,946.4 kgCO2e/h. Besides, the distribution characteristics of direct and indirect carbon emissions among each unit
were investigated. The indirect carbon emission, which is mainly caused by material handling, accounts for
74.09 % of total carbon emission of the system. In addition, the carbon emissions of unit CO and C 2H2
were calculated which are 1.60 kg-CO2e/kg-CO and 16.04 kg-CO2e/kg-C2H2. Therefore, the multi-product
comprehensive carbon emission of the system is 2.31 kg-CO2e/kg-product.
1. Introduction
There are two methods to produce the low carbon hydrocarbons from the raw coal. The first method is to
produce methanol through the coal gasification, and the olefins are obtained by the methanol-to-olefin
(MTO) technology. The other method is to produce the calcium carbide through the oxygen-thermal
method process, and then the reaction of calcium carbide and water can produce the acetylene (Tang,
2009). Compared to the coal-based gasification MTO process, the coal-based calcium carbide acetylene
method is simpler, and the calcium carbide, as the intermediate product, is regarded as the important
chemicals for the organic synthesis. In the calcium carbide production system, the CO concentration in the
furnace gas is much higher than that in the syngas from coal gasification. In the conventional process of
coal-coke-calcium carbide-acetylene, the furnace temperature is maintained at 1,600-2,000 C through
the electrode. Then the coke and lime are conversed to the calcium carbide and furnace gas with high CO
concentration (Liu et al, 2011). The process to produce the acetylene was studied from the perspective of
thermodynamic analysis, which contained energy consumption and energy quality (Guo et al, 2012). The
relative research shows that the oxygen-thermal method to produce calcium carbide has lower multiproduct comprehensive energy and exergy consumptions than the electric-thermal method process (Mi,
2013). Kuppens (2014) assessed the pyrolysis char production and application from the techno-economic
viability, and the char could be used to produce calcium carbide. Therefore, the coal-based oxygenthermal calcium carbide acetylene system is a process to produce acetylene with the potentials of
efficiency and energy saving. As to the life cycle assessment (LCA), Cespi (2014) considered that LCA
could give the data to assess the environmental sustainability of an industrial. In the previous study about
the carbon footprint of the system, the comprehensive carbon emissions were investigated as the main
index (Yu et al, 2014). However, the carbon emission characteristic of each unit is rarely studied,
especially the coproduction process with two or more products.
This paper firstly describes the process of the low-rank coal-based oxygen-thermal calcium carbide to
produce the acetylene, and the system boundary is designated. Then the mass and energy balance and
Please cite this article as: Zheng D., Chen X., Mi Y., Jin P., 2014, Carbon footprint assessment of low-rank coal-based
acetylene system, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 39, 493-498 DOI:10.3303/CET1439083
494
the carbon emission data are collected from the simulation results and relative scientific reports. According
to the multi-product carbon footprint evaluation method, the comprehensive carbon emission of the system
and each unit are calculated. Besides, the multi-product carbon footprint is also investigated.
C Cd Ci
(kg-CO2e/h) (1)
d
where C is the carbon emission of the system, C and C indicate direct carbon emission and indirect
d
i
carbon emission respectively. During the calculation of C and C , many other factors should be taken into
d
consideration. For example, C can be calculated by the addition of CO2 equivalent quantity of each unit,
and CO2 equivalent quantity is obtained from different greenhouse gas (GHG) factors. Therefore, the direct
carbon emission is calculated as
C d Ckd,g GWPg
k
(kg-CO2e/h) (2)
where k and GWPg indicate the unit k and the global warming potential of green gas g.
i
u
m
C is generally decomposed into utility carbon emission (C ) and material handling carbon emission (C ).
u
m
C is caused by the utility consumption, such as electric, steam and cooling water. C is caused by
m
preparing the feedstock and handling the byproduct, and C belongs to the whole system and not the
i
certain unit. So C is calculated as
(kg-CO2e/h) (3)
where n donates material n. Combining Eqs(1), (2) and (3), the carbon emission of the system is then
written as
Cku, g f k , g ,i Ek ,i
i
Cku,g
(kg-CO2e/h) (4)
can be calculated as
(kg-CO2e/h) (5)
where fk,g,i is the emission factor of GHG g in utility i of unit k, Ek,i is utility i consumption in unit k. Similarly,
Cnm, g
is calculated as
Cnm,g f n,g M n
( kg-GHG/h) (6)
where fn,g is the emission factor of GHG g for material n, and Mn is the mass flow of material n.
The product carbon emission should be quantified based on a certain unit. Because of the variety of
chemical process, most processes contain two or more products. To consider the effects of different
495
products distribution on the comparison between the carbon footprints of different processes, the multiproduct carbon emission is defined as (Mi et al, 2013)
c x jc j
(kg-CO2e/kg-product) (7)
xj
(8)
Beside, cj is unit carbon emission of product j in Eq(7), and it can also be calculated as
cj
C
c dj c uj c mj
Pj
(kg-CO2e/kg-productj) (9)
where pj is the mass flow of product j. Therefore, the multi-product carbon emission of the system can be
calculated as
c x j c dj c uj c mj
(kg-CO2e/kg-product) (10)
496
Total
Input
Mass flow (kg/h)
13,473.90
3,140.00
5,090.00
3,393.56
21,957.54
Products
Acetylene
Off-gas
Dust
Slag
Syngas
Coal tar
Water
Total
Utility Consumption
Output
Mass flow (kg/h)
931.92
916.08
10,196.64
3,278.02
1,157.51
1,347.92
4,129.45
21,957.54
Unit
U1
U2
U3
U5
U6
U6
U7
U8
Type of Unit
Heat
Heat
Water
Electric
Electric
Water
Electric
Heat
Energy (kW)
4,886.00
2,078.75
648.96
10.00
540.00
1,280.00
110.00
1,560.00
Waste
Utilities
Type
Raw coal mining
Lime production
GHG factor
0.017
0.73
Unit
kgCH4/kg
kgCO2/kg-lime
Coke production
Oxygen-enriched gas
0.56
0.20
kgCO2/kg
kgCO2/kg
Ash
Electricity
Cooling water
Heat power
3.66
0.80
0.084
0.08
kg-CO2e/kg-ash
kgCO2/kWh
kgCO2/kWh
kgCO2/ kWh
In Figure 2, the brown, grey and black colors indicate the material handling carbon emission, the utility
consumption carbon emission and the direct carbon emission of each unit. The figure at the upper right
corner of Figure 2 is the amplification of U2, U5, U7 and U8. As is shown in Figure 2, the comprehensive
carbon emissions for U1, U2, U3, U4, U5, U6, U7 and U8 are 6,796.5 kg-CO2e/h, 107.1 kg-CO2e/h,
3,825.7 kg-CO2e/h, 3,310.2 kg-CO2e/h, 155.1 kg-CO2e/h, 539.0 kg-CO2e/h, 88.0 kg-CO2e/h and 124.8 kgCO2e/h, respectively. And the total carbon emission of the low-rank coal-based acetylene system is
14,946.4 kg-CO2e/h.
497
498
4. Conclusions
Based on our previous work on the multi-product carbon footprint and the process simulation, the carbon
footprint characteristic of the low-rank coal-based acetylene process was studied in this paper. The above
research shows that:
1) the totally comprehensive carbon emission of the system is 14,946.4 kg-CO2e/h, and those of each
unit are 6,796.5kg-CO2e/h, 107.1 kg-CO2e/h, 3,825.7 kg-CO2e/h, 3,310.2 kg-CO2e/h, 155.1 kgCO2e/h, 539.0 kg-CO2e/h, 88.0 kg-CO2e/h and 124.8 kg-CO2e/h, respectively.
2) The direct and indirect carbon emissions of the system are 3,872.1 kg-CO2e/h and 11,074.3 kgCO2e/h, which accounts for 25.91 % and 74.09 % of the total carbon emission of the system. In the
indirect carbon emission, the carbon emission caused by the material handling takes up 84.97 %, and
the main cause is the exploitations of raw coal and lime. In order to reduce the indirect carbon
emission, the exploration of advanced material handling method and the clean utilization of the waste
should be considered in the latter optimization of the system.
3) Both the calcium carbide furnace gas and acetylene are the products of the system. The carbon
footprints of unit CO and C2H2 are 1.60 kg-CO2e/kg-CO and 16.04 kg-CO2e /kg-C2H2. Therefore, the
multi-product comprehensive carbon footprint of the system is 2.31 kg-CO2e /kg-product.
Acknowledgement
This work is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2011CB201306).
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