Performance Assessment of a Combined Coal Gasification and Methanation System with Particle Swarm Optimization Method

Abstract

Carbon dioxide hydrogenation is a promising method of producing alternative fuels in an environmentally friendly way. Researchers in the current literature have mainly investigated the performance of carbon dioxide hydrogenation systems that use carbon dioxide from various sources and hydrogen from water electrolysis units. In the present study, the performance of a combined coal gasification and methanation unit is investigated to produce methane and power. The carbon dioxide and hydrogen for the methanation unit are provided by the coal gasification system. A Particle swarm optimization (PSO), an optimization-based artificial intelligence method, is applied to optimize the carbon dioxide and hydrogen values here. Therefore, the water electrolysis unit, which needs high amounts of energy, effectively is removed from the system. The results from the studied system showed that it is possible to produce ~225 kilotons of methane annually by using ~946 kilotons of coal per year. In addition, the results revealed that annual carbon dioxide utilization of ~624.3 kilotons is possible. The system efficiency is estimated at around 49%.