For my Chemical Process Design class, my team and I designed a process that would convert Municipal Solid Waste into High Quality Pure Methanol fuel. My primary role in my group was evaluating the market value and economic potential of methanol in the renewable energy market using outside sources. Our simulation model (created using ASPEN) found that the purity ethanol was 91%, while the standard purity is 85%. Thus, our plant was able to deliver a higher quality fuel product. Using methanol as an alternative fuel source provides many attractive benefits in terms of safety, lower costs, and energy security. Methanol has a lower flammability than regular gasoline. It is also relatively cheaper to regular gasoline, and can be produced from various carbon-based feedstocks such as natural gas and coal. As a result of its low cost and reliability, using methanol can reduce the United States’ dependency on importing petroleum sources. Today, the methanol industry generates approximately $36 billion in revenue per year. It has also created more than 100,000 jobs over the world.
Today, about 250 million tons of MSW (municipal solid waste) make up the bulk landfill space. Solid waste is a product of many different phenomenon such as domestic, industrial, water waste treatment, and so on. Because of the fast rate at which solid waste is produced, it must also be removed from the landfill to avoid excessive build up of toxic wastes that could pollute the atmosphere. Fortunately, MSW has the economic potential to be a valuable feedstock to be converted into a biofuel, as MSW’s largest constituent is lignocellulose from wood and paper. For this project in particular, the lignocellulose will be recovered from the MSW to produce methanol fuel.
In today’s alternative fuels market, methanol is emerging to become a very attractive energy source. Since the early 1990’s, flexibly fueled vehicles in California have been using 85% methanol and 15% gasoline fuel, though methanol has yet to join the gasoline market as a regularly consumed fuel source.
Because it is the most basic alcohol, the combustion of this source leads to more efficient combustion. In other words, its carbon dioxide and unburned carbon emissions are much lower than those of petroleum fuel sources. There are also considerably less NOx emissions. This is what makes the conversion of municipal solid waste into methanol so vital in the renewable processes industry. This renewable process is called “energy recovery from waste”, which involves converting non-recyclable waste materials into useable energy or fuel.
Aside from transportation fuel, methanol also has great potential to be used as a fuel cell, in which the chemical energy from the reaction can be converted to electrical energy. Methanol is also frequently used to produce acetic acid, formaldehyde, and other chemical intermediaries that are widely used in consumer products today.
