Analysis of electrification reconfiguration for the coal to ethylene glycol process integrated with renewable energy.

Industrial electrification is a crucial strategy for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and tackling the challenge of renewable energy consumption. With the advancement of low-carbon electricity, chemical process electrification has garnered extensive attention. This work focuses on the electrification reconfiguration and carbon emission reduction of traditional chemical process, which mainly concerns the indirect electrification of processes and direct electrification of utilities, using the state-of-the-art Coal-to-Ethylene glycol (CtEG) process as a case study. The conventional CtEG process results in high CO 2 emissions due to water gas shift reaction. The indirect electrification path of the conventional CtEG process is achieved by introducing green hydrogen from solid oxide electrolysis cell technology (SOEC-CtEG). Electric heaters are directly used for the hot utility in SOEC-CtEG process to form a semi-electrification scenario (SES). To investigate the performance of different electrification levels, the full-electrification scenario (FES) is also designed. The results showed that the total CO 2 emissions for the four scenarios are 3.047, 0.576, 0.278 and 0.334 t/t EG, with energy efficiencies of 47.86%, 50.11%, 50.07% and 46.74%, respectively. Production costs are 3024.4, 3497.4, 3869.4, and 6147.8 CNY/t EG, respectively. The present work will contribute to the carbon reduction and process electrification of the CtEG process. • Four scenarios with different levels of electrification for CtEG are being investigated. • Electrification results in an increase in the carbon efficiency of CtEG to 90.24%. • Energy efficiency of the indirect electrification process is the highest at 50.11%. • Semi-electrification process achieves a significant 90.88% reduction in CO 2 emissions. • Full-electrification scenario is not the ideal choice when comparing performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]