DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS, MODELING AND ASSESSMENT FOR THE THERMOCHEMICAL

PRODUCTION OF DIESEL FUEL FROM MISCANTHUS-EGYPTIAN COAL BLEND

A. Wafiq & M. Hanafy
Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt
Tel.: +201003704390; fax: +20235678625
E-mail address: ahmad.wafiq@eng1.cu.edu.eg


ABSTRACT: Egypt is facing acute diesel oil shortage with some national figures estimating the current imports to be
half of the consumption. The combined Coal and Biomass to Liquids (CBtL) route is promising production
alternative as it is based on two commercially proven sections; Coal/Biomass blend gasification and Fischer-Tropsch.
This paper proposes a novel strategic combination between Maghara Egyptian Coal and Miscanthus energy crop.
To assess the technical performance of this blend, three different routes were studied; BtL using Miscanthus, CtL
using coal, and CBtL using 70-30 blend. Aspen plus
TM
was used to model these routes, and the pinch technology
analysis was used to conduct energy integration. It was found that the three routes dont need external heating agents
while huge amount of cooling water is required. The CBtL route was found to be competitive to CtL in the fuel
yields. CBtL diesel yield amounts to 162 kg/t feed compared to 167 for the CtL, and the naphtha yield was found to
be about 70 kg/t feed for both. In addition to the comparable fuel yields factor, it can be concluded that CBtL route is
favored to the CtL route due to less cooling water consumption (6.6 vs. 7.1 m
3
/t feed), higher thermal efficiency (48%
vs. 44% on lower heating value basis including export power) and lower GHG (0.96 vs. 1.5 t CO2/ t feed).
Keywords: diesel, gasification, Fischer-Tropsch, miscanthus, coal, modeling


1 INTRODUCTION

The shortage of the petroleum reserves and the
consequent high prices impose much stress on the liquid
fuels market worldwide. Despite being the largest oil
producer in Africa that is not a member of the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC), in addition to having the largest refinery
capacity in Africa [1], Egypt is currently facing an acute
energy crisis especially in the diesel oil supply.
According to the Egyptian Central Agency for Public
Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), the diesel
imports is currently around 50.0% of the annual
consumption and its share of the total Egyptian imports
jumped from 2.5% in 2007 to about 9%. In addition to
the increased population and economic growth, one of the
main reasons behind this crisis is the growing debts of the
country to the foreign oil partners. It is anticipated that
the current crisis will lead to reductions in the diesel oil
subsidies; a decision which will affect food price
inflation and subsequent political unrest [2]. In addition
to implementing energy subsidy reforms, Egypt should
apply alternative technological routes for the production
of diesel oil.
The combination of biomass gasification and Fischer-
Tropsch (FT) named as Biomass to Liquid (BtL)
technology is a promising route for producing
transportation bio-fuels [3] from different kinds of
biomass including energy crops, agricultural residues and
organic wastes [4]. This route is also catalyzed by the
increased awareness about the global warming problem
accompanied with the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
especially from the transport sector [5]. However,
technical and logistical obstacles still face the
commercialization of this route. Despite being a
prioritized research area, standalone biomass gasification
technologies are still in the pilot and demonstration scale
[6,7]. In addition, the availability, handling and storage of
the low bulk energy density biomass badly affect the
process economics [3].
On the other hand, coal to liquid (CtL) is a mature
commercial technology for the production of alternative
liquid synthetic fuels also using gasification followed by
FT using coal as feedstock [8] instead of biomass. On the
contrary to the status of biomass gasifiers, industrial-
scale coal gasifiers are currently commercially available,
with more than 420 gasifiers worldwide [9]. In addition
to being mature technology, CtL has the advantage of the
abundant coal reserves in different parts of the world, and
its low price compared to the current petroleum prices
[8]. However, CtL technology suffers from the
disadvantage of not being sustainable regarding its finite
reserves and its big contribution to the GHG emissions
[10]. The challenges of the BtL technology and the
disadvantages of the CtL technology could be remarkably
mitigated by the co-processing of coal and biomass using
the Combined Coal and Biomass to Liquid (CBtL)
technology [8]. The co-gasification of coal and biomass
is a commercially-proven technology as it is currently
employed in Buggenum integrated-gasification combined
cycle (IGCC) facility in the Netherlands [11].
The technical and economical feasibility of the
production of FT-liquids (XtL) from either coal or
biomass or a mixture of both has been the subject of
previous researches [5, 7, 8, 12-20]. This work aims to
assess the technical feasibility of the production of FT-
liquids in Egypt using three different routes; namely BtL
using Miscanthus energy crop, CtL using Maghara
Egyptian coal, and CBtL using a combined feed of
Miscanthus and Maghara coal. Miscanthus energy crop is
chosen as it is a high yielding material, sustain the dry
and arid climate, suitable for the Egyptian soil properties,
has low irrigation water requirements, and has high
calorific value [21]. On the other hand, Maghara coal is
the only coal mine available in Egypt with about 20
million ton proven reserves. Theoretically, Maghara coal
is promising feed for entrained flow gasifiers because of
its high reactivity [22] in addition to the sulfur
transformation to H
2
S which can be easily purified
compared to SOX emissions.
In this work, the three proposed routes will be
modeled using Aspen Plus process simulation software.
The resulting mass and energy balances will be used to
assess and compare the three routes using different
performance indicators like fuel yields, net power
production, overall thermal efficiency, raw materials and
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
1208
utilities consumption, and GHG emissions. The results of
this technical assessment shall help in the early
elimination of one or more of the routes and will be the
base of a subsequent study aiming to estimate the cost of
1 barrel of diesel using the different routes in Egypt.


2 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

2.1 Gasifier technology
For the large scale commercial production required
for this work, the entrained-flow gasification technology
is known to be the most suitable [23]. It is also
characterized by high carbon conversion and minimal tar
production [20], and hence it is selected to be the gasifier
technology in this work. According to [24], nearly 75%
of the gasification plants that generate electricity from
coal throughout the world use two entrained flow
gasification technologies; namely, Shell and Texaco. In
this work, Shell entrained flow gasification technology
has been selected because of its successful experience
with co-gasification in Buggenum plant [11], and its
higher thermal efficiency compared to Texaco [25].

2.2 Feeding rate
To have common basis for comparing the different
performance parameters, the same feeding rate and
capacities (in MW
th
) were assumed for the three proposed
routes. As the maximum capacity of biomass gasifiers is
400 MW
th
[3,12], the feeding rate was adjusted to be
around this value or one of its multiples. Other guides for
choosing feeding rate as well were the commercial Shell
units currently operating [26] in addition to the proven
reserves of Maghara coal mine. The balance of these
factors has finally led to select the feeding rate as 115 t/h
using 2*400 MW
th
units. The impact of changing the
feeding rate on the syngas compositions at constant
thermal power output was studied as a part of this work.
The coal-biomass blend mass ratio in the CBtL route
was taken as 70-30 as this is nearly the blend ratio
commercially applied in Buggenum plant [27].

2.3 Flow rates of gasifying agents
Oxygen, air, steam or mixtures of them are the most
widely used gasifying agents. While the air gasification is
cheaper than oxygen and steam, the corresponding
heating value of the produced syngas is much lower (4-7
MJ/Nm
3
vs. 10-14 MJ/Nm
3
). When steam is used, the
rate of the endothermic water gas and methane steam
reforming reactions increase leading to a decrease in the
syngas temperature and an increase in the hydrogen
composition of the syngas [7]. Entrained flow gasifiers
generally use oxygen and steam as gasifying agents. The
ratios of oxygen and steam to the solid feed (coal,
biomass, or their mixture) are important design
parameters which affect the resulting syngas temperature
and composition, and accordingly the downstream
processes will be much affected. The oxygen to feed ratio
is generally represented by the symbol (lambda) which
is defined as follows [28]:


(d.a.f) input fuel of Unit
ts requiremen O tric Stoichiome
(d.a.f) supply Fuel
Supply O External

2
2
(1)

The value of lambda for biomass gasification is
generally between 0.2 and 0.5 [28, 29], where its value
for entrained flow gasifiers specifically lies between 0.35
and 0.5 [29, 30]. For coal entrained flow gasification,
lambda lies between 0.4 and 0.9 [25]. On the other hand,
the steam to biomass ratio for biomass gasification is in
the range of 0.5-1.5 [5, 28], while the steam to coal ratio
falls between 0.01 and 0.35 [25, 31].
In this work, a parametric study was performed for
the lambda value and steam to feed ratio in the three
proposed routes where their effects on the syngas
composition and outlet temperature were investigated.
The results of this parametric study were crucial in
selecting the operational lambda and steam to feed ratio
in each of the three proposed routes.

2.4 Energy integration
Pinch technology analysis (PTA) was employed in
this work to perform energy integration in each of the
proposed routes. PTA is a tool which aims to minimize
the energy consumption by estimating the heating and
cooling targets through thermodynamic calculations [32,
33]. PTA first starts by categorizing the process streams
into groups of hot and cold streams, and then temperature
interval diagram and composite curves are accordingly
created. The pinch point is defined as the point of closest
approach between the hot and cold composite curves [7].
By avoiding the inclusion of heat exchangers passing
through the pinch temperature in the heat exchanger
network (HEN) schemes, the process heating and cooling
targets will be minimized. In large scale processes as
those encountered in this work, the minimization of
energy consumption is a crucial factor in the production
cost and hence the feasibility of the proposed routes.


3 PROCESS DESCRIPTION

3.1 Pre-processing
The proximate and ultimate analysis of Miscanthus
energy crop (M*G) and Maghara coal (MC) is presented
in Table 1. As shown, the moisture content in both feeds
is low, and accordingly no drying step is included for
both. Accordingly, the feed preparation section is just
feed storage and size reduction. After being stored in the
silos, coal and biomass are separately conveyed to
grinding facilities to reduce the average particle size to 1
mm or even lower. Such low particle size is required in
the entrained flow gasification technology to acquire
extremely fast heating rates.

Table I: Proximate and ultimate analysis of the feed
materials used in this work

Feed Type Miscanthus Maghara coal
Proximate analysis in wt% (as received)
Fixed carbon 9.5 38.4
Volatile matter 78.8 49.3
Ash 2.7 6.8
Moisture 10 5.5
Ultimate analysis in wt% (dry basis)
C 49.5 70.7
H 6.1 6.0
N 0.1 1.2
S 0.006 1.7
O 41.2 13.1
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
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3.2 Gasification
Gasification is generally an endothermic process
which requires either indirect heating or supplying
oxygen to generate heat through exothermic reactions [5].
In entrained flow gasifiers, oxygen is used in higher
rate than other gasifier types to ensure having high
temperatures sufficient for melting the ash transforming it
into slag, and to achieve high carbon conversions. As
shown in Fig. 1, the solid feed (coal/biomass/blend) is fed
together with oxygen and steam from the gasifiers top
where the solid feed is rapidly pyrolyzed then gasified
forming syngas and slag. The hot syngas at 1315
o
C is
either cooled by radiant and convective design without
using quench system, radiant design with quench system,
or using quench system only. The radiant section depends
on cooling the syngas through the generation of high
pressure steam in tubes. In case of using convective
section, the pre-cooled syngas passes through boiler tube
banks which also generate high pressure steam. In
addition to cooling the syngas, the design of the
convective section should help remove some of the
entrained particles [34]. The water quench system, a
technology which is also supported by Shell gasifiers,
depends on spraying water over the syngas without
generating steam. This system is suitable in case of
having a subsequent water gas shift reactor [35] because
of the increased amount of steam which will be evolved
from the evaporation of the quench water. The radiant
and convective design is more energy efficient; however,
the quench system is less expensive [34] and it has high
efficiency in removing the entrained particulates which
may clog the downstream equipment [20]. To guarantee
smooth operation of the downstream units and at the
same time have a reasonable energy efficiency of the
gasifier, the radiant design with quench system is used in
this work as shown in Fig. 1. The quench water flow rate
will be adjusted to cool the syngas to the temperature
required by the subsequent downstream unit.

3.3 Syngas processing
The cooled syngas cant be directly routed to FT
synthesis as its composition should be first adjusted. A
fraction of the syngas is directed to a water-gas shift
(WGS) reactor, while the other fraction is bypassed.
WGS operates at 240
o
C [20] where CO reacts with steam
to produce H
2
and CO
2
. The resulting gas is then mixed
again with the bypass fraction where the resulting H
2
/CO
ratio should be about 2 [18]. The syngas is then cooled to
40
o
C to condense any unreacted steam, and hence
increase the calorific value of the syngas. To increase the
calorific value of the syngas further, the CO
2
and any
amounts of H
2
S will be removed by passing the syngas to
an acid gas removal system. This system can either be
chemical absorption using monoethanolamine (MEA) or
by physical absorption using Selexol process [5]. The
stripped acid gas is then directed to a sulfur recovery unit
to convert H
2
S to solid pure sulfur.

3.4 FT synthesis
The syngas is then heated to 240
o
C [18] which is the
temperature suitable for operating the FT reactor. FT
synthesis process consists of several catalytic exothermic
reactions converting the syngas into hydrocarbons of
different chain lengths [5]. According to the type of end
products desired, the reactors temperature and catalyst are
selected. In case the diesel and wax fractions are to be
maximized as is the case in this work, the process is called
low-temperature FT (LTFT) where the temperature is in
the range of 200-250
o
C and cobalt is used as a catalyst [3].
The type of reactor used can be either multi-tubular fixed
Figure 1: Process flow diagram of FT diesel production from coal/biomass feed



`
Feed Preparation
Solid Feed Air separation
unit
Air
Oxygen
Nitrogen
Process Steam
Water
in
Steam
out
Water
WGS
Flash
Drum

Wastewater
Acid gas
removal
Sulfur
recovery
Cooler
Heater
Cooler
Flash
Drum
Wastewater
Side Stripper
Steam
Steam
Separator
Cooler
Cooler
Decanter
Wastewater
Wastewater
PSA
Hydrogen
Combustor
Gas Turbine
Air
Flash
Drum
HP LP
HRSG
Makeup
water
Exhaust gases
Flash
Drum
Side Stripper
Steam
Steam
Separator
Cooler
Wastewater
Flash
Drum
Cooler
Cooler
Diesel Oil
Naphtha
LPG
Diesel Oil
Power
Power
CO2 + H2S
CO2
FT Reactor
Heater
Hydrocracker
Light
Gases
S
Slag + water
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
1210
bed reactor, or slurry bed reactor [5].
The general form of FT reactions can be summarized
as (Eq. 2 and Eq. 3) [18]:
O H n H C H n CO n
n n 2 2 2 2
) 1 2 ( (2)
O H n OH H C H n CO n
n n 2 1 2 2
) 1 ( 2 (3)
The idea of FT reactions can be expressed according to
an Anderson-Schulze-Flory (ASF) distribution (Eq. 4). The
mole fraction of hydrocarbon molecules P
n
containing n
carbon atoms depends on which is the probability that a
hydrocarbon chain combines with another instead of
terminating [5].
) 1 (
1 n
n
P (4)

3.5 Hydroprocessing
As shown in Fig. 1, the product from FT reactor is
then cooled to 40
o
C and sent to a 3-phase separator where
gas is separated from a hydrocarbon phase and water
phase. The hydrocarbon phase is separated in a
distillation column supplied with steam and equipped
with side stripper into a top product rich in LPG and
naphtha, middle product composed of crude diesel, and a
heavy product rich in wax. The latter is pumped to 50 bar
and heated to 345
o
C before being directed to a
hydrocracker. The other feed to the hydrocracker is
hydrogen which is separated using pressure swing
adsorption (PSA) unit from the gas stream produced from
FT reactor. The heavy wax is cracked to form about 5%
light gases, 15% naphtha, and 80% diesel [12] with about
80% overall conversion [18].
The hydrocracker effluent is cooled and directed into
a distillation column similar to the first one where the
bottom product is recycled to the hydrocracker as well.
The top product from both columns is directed to a 3-
phase separator where the liquid water and light gases are
separated from the naphtha rich stream. The latter stream
is directed to a third column to separate residual light
compounds followed by a fourth column to separate LPG
from naphtha. To increase the recovery of the LPG and
naphtha products, the gas stream produced from FT
reactor is fractionated in a fifth column where an
ammonia refrigeration cycle is employed. The bottom
product of this column is rich in LPG and naphtha and is
directed to the fourth column, while the top product is
splitted to a part routed to the PSA and the other to the
combined heat and power (CHP) section.

3.6 Power generation
To utilize the chemical energy stored in the
unconverted syngas, it is routed to CHP section which is
composed of gas turbine, heat recovery steam generator
(HRSG), and steam turbine. The gas turbine consists of
air compressor, combustor, and expander. Huge amount
of air, much higher than the theoretical amount needed
for combustion, is compressed in order to cool the blades
and vanes. Then the compressed air is mixed with the
unconverted syngas in the combustor forming hot flue
gases which are then directed to the multi-staged
expander to generate power.
The hot flue gases after the gas turbine contain much
amount of energy that should be utilized. Thus, the flue
gases are routed to HRSG which is composed of gas-gas
heat exchangers heating liquid water into steam [34]. Part
of this steam will be used as gasifying agent for the
entrained flow gasifier, while the majority is sent to the
multi-stage steam turbine to generate excess power.

4 SIMULATION MODEL

Aspen Plus process simulation software is used to
model and simulate the three proposed routes in this
work. Aspen Plus is the most widely used software in the
technical and economic studies of coal/biomass
gasification for the generation of chemicals/power [3, 18,
34, 36, 37]

4.1 Components and thermodynamic package
Two component types are used in the Aspen Plus
model of each of the three routes; namely, Conventional
and Non-Conventional. The first type is applicable for all
the gaseous and liquid components, while the other is
used for the solid feed. As the products of FT reactor are
mainly naphtha, diesel, and wax, the components to be
entered to the model should represent all these fractions.
This work has followed the methodology used by Sudiro
and Bertucco [18] in selecting the different components.
Sudiro and Bertucco [18] have chosen all the linear and
saturated hydrocarbons from C
5
H
12
to C
30
H
62
, C
32
H
66

and C
36
H
74
which are already available in the library of
the simulator. The same authors [18] have also defined
new components to the simulator to have better
representation for the wax fraction. These components
are namely C
37
H
76
, C
38
H
78
, C
39
H
80
, C
40
H
82
, C
45
H
92
,
C
50
H
102
, C
55
H
112
and C
60
H
122
. The olefins produced from
FT reactions are represented in this work by ethene,
propene and butane, while the alcohols are represented by
components by ethanol, n-propanol, i-propanol, n-butanol
and i-butanol [38]. On the other hand, the solid feed of
each route is modeled as Non-Conventional (NC)
component whose composition is defined through the
proximate and ultimate analysis. The latter are entered in
the Aspen model as Component Attribute.
The correct choice of the thermodynamic package is
crucial for equilibrium calculations and hence the
compositions of the different streams in the flow sheet.
For the current work, Peng-Robinson equation of state
with Boston-Mathias modifications (PR-BM) was
selected as the thermodynamic package [18]. For the NC
components, HCOALGEN and DCOALIGT models are
used for the enthalpy and density calculations
respectively [39].

4.2 Modeling syngas production and processing
The entrained flow gasifier modeling can be
classified into modeling the gasification reaction, and
modeling the heat recovery section. The gasification
reaction is modeled using 2 reactors in series; RStoic
representing the solid feed pyrolysis, and RGibbs
representing the char gasification. In RStoic, the reaction
modeled is the decomposition of the solid feed into O
2
,
N
2
, H
2
, H
2
O, C, S and ash. The stoichiometry of every
product is calculated separately based on the proximate
and ultimate analysis using a user-specified Fortran
Calculator. For the high temperatures encountered in the
entrained flow gasifiers, thermodynamic equilibrium
conditions can be assumed [3, 5, 37], and accordingly
RGibbs is used to model the char gasification. The slag is
then separated from the produced syngas using a simple
Separator (Sep), while the syngas will be transferred to
the heat recovery section. The radiant cooling is modeled
using a Heat Exchanger (HeatX) where a water stream at
room temperature is converted to a superheated stream
whose flow rate is adjusted to cool the syngas to 815
o
C
[34]. The water quench section is then modeled as a
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
1211
Mixer which mixes the cooled syngas and quench water
followed by a Flash separator which separates the
syngas and the resulting wastewater stream.
The cooled syngas is then splitted using a (FSplit)
block so that part is directed to the WGS reactor and the
other bypasses it. The WGS reactor was modeled as
REquil where the WGS reaction is specified [37]. The
WGS product is then mixed with the rest of the syngas
before being cooled to 40
o
C using a utility heat
exchanger (Heater) and another wastewater stream is
separated using a Flash separator. The last syngas
processing step before the FT section is the acid gas
removal which is modeled using a simple Separator
(Sep) [18].

4.3 Modeling FT and hydroprocessing
The syngas is heated to 240
o
C, the temperature of FT
reactor, using a utility heat exchanger (Heater). The
syngas is then directed to FT reactor which is modeled as
RStoic [3] where a total of 48 reactions have been
defined. The product stream is then cooled to 40
o
C using
a utility heat exchanger (Heater) before being separated
in a Flash separator into gas product, liquid product, and
a wastewater stream. The liquid product is throttled using
a Valve and then fed together with a steam stream to a
PetroFrac column (PetroFrac1) equipped with a side
stripper. The locations of the different feed and product
streams are given together with the molar flow rate of the
distillate and side product streams. An optimization block
(O-1) was used to maximize the recovery of C11 in the
distillate stream by varying the flow rates of the main
steam and side product streams. Three constraints were
added to the optimization block to adjust the carbon
numbers of the top, side and bottom product streams. The
side product stream was thus adjusted to be in the range
of C10 and C20, and thus it is considered a crude diesel
oil product. The top product of PetroFrac1 is then cooled
to 40
o
C using a utility heat exchanger (Heater) before
being separated in a flash separator into light gases,
liquid product, and a wastewater stream. The liquid
product is then pumped and distilled in a RadFrac
column (RadFrac1) separating any amount of light gases.
The pressure in RadFrac1 was adjusted to separate gases
lighter than C3 using cooling water in the condenser. The
bottom product of RadFrac1 is then throttled using a
Valve and then distilled in a RadFrac column (RadFrac2)
into an LPG top product and crude naphtha bottom
product. An optimization block (O-2) was used to
maximize the recovery of C4 in RadFrac2 by varying the
feed pressure and reflux ratio and adding a constraint that
makes the minimum temperature after the condenser
40
o
C so that it can be attained using normal cooling
water.
The bottom product of PetroFrac1 which contains a
lot of waxes is pumped and heated using a utility heat
exchanger (Heater) before being fed to the hydrocracker.
The latter is modeled as RYield reactor [18] which is
often used in case of knowing the product distribution
without knowing the exact reaction mechanism. The
different component yields were calculated in a separate
Excel spreadsheet to achieve the required product
distribution. The product of RYield reactor is throttled,
cooled and separated using a Flash separator into a
liquid and gas streams. The liquid stream is directed to
PetroFrac column (PetroFrac2) equipped with a side
stripper while the gas stream is cooled further and
separated using a Flash separator into a gas stream rich
in LPG and a liquid stream also directed to PetroFrac2.
Using the same methodology of PetroFrac1, an
optimization block (O-3) was created to adjust the carbon
numbers of the top, side and bottom product streams. The
bottom product rich in waxes is then pumped and
recycled to the hydrocracker to crack it further to lighter
products. The product of the hydrocracker was taken as a
Tear Stream in order to facilitate the solution of the
recycle loop. The side product of PetroFrac2 together
with that of PetroFrac1 are fed into a Decanter to
separate the accompanying water and acquire the crude
diesel fraction product. The top product of PetroFrac2 is
treated the same as the top product of PetroFrac1 where
it is separated from water and then pumped to RadFrac1
followed by RadFrac2.
The gas stream produced from the Flash separator
following the FT reactor is fed to a distillation column
(RadFrac3) to recover as much as possible of LPG and
naphtha. An optimization block (O-4) varying the reflux
ratio and the distillate flow rate is created to maintain the
condensers temperature above -32
o
C so that an ammonia
refrigeration cycle can be used. The bottom product is
then directed to RadFrac2 to achieve the final LPG and
crude naphtha products. The top product of RadFrac3 is
splitted using a (FSplit) block so that a small part is
directed to the PSA unit for separating hydrogen required
for the hydrocracking, while the other part bypasses it
and is directed to the CHP section. The PSA is modeled
using a simple Separator, where the separated Hydrogen
is compressed using (Compr) to the hydrocrackers
pressure.

4.4 Modeling power generation
Air is compressed on 3 stages using (Compr) where a
(FSplit) block follows each stage so that some air cools
the gas turbine blades. Compression ratio of 2.5 is used in
each stage. The compressed air is then mixed with the
unconverted syngas and directed to a combustor modeled
as RStoic block where combustion reactions for all the
combustible components in the syngas are added. The
exhaust gases from the combustor are expanded on 3
stages using (Compr) at an expansion ratio of 2.5. The
exhaust gases from each stage are mixed with the air
splitted after each compressor stage. After the last
expander stage, the exhaust gases are cooled on 4 stages
using 4 heat exchangers (HeatX). The cooling stream in
each HeatX is water or steam produced from the HRSG
section. After the first 3 HeatX blocks, the water becomes
superheated steam which is expanded in a high pressure
steam turbine section using (Compr) block. The resulting
steam is then further heated in the 4
th
HeatX block and
splitted using a (FSplit) block so that part is used as a
feed steam to the gasifier, and the other is directed to 2
consecutive steam expander stages producing work. The
discharge steam is then mixed with make-up water and
separated using a Flash separator into steam and liquid
water which is pumped to exchange heat with the exhaust
flue gases from the gas turbine section.

4.5 Energy Integration
Aspen Energy Analyzer software was used to conduct
the energy integration of the three studied routes in this
work. Aspen Energy Analyzer was used to extract the
data of the heat exchangers from the modeled flow sheet,
and it accordingly determines the pinch temperature(s)
and plots the composite curves. The temperature of the
cooling water utility was fixed at 25
o
C while that of the
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
1212
refrigerant was selected to be -40
o
C. The program then
generates alternative HEN schemes satisfying all the
heating and cooling requirements.


5 PROCESS PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

This section highlights the main outputs of the
simulation model of each of the three routes. The results
will be presented in terms of process performance
parameters. Nine performance parameters were chosen in
this work; namely, the flow rates of the oxygen and steam
gasifying agents, yields of the liquid fuel products, yields
of CO
2
(the main byproduct), yields of wastewater,
cooling water requirements, net electricity production,
overall thermal efficiency, and GHG emissions.

5.1 Parametric study results of the feed rates and ratios
In operation, sometimes it happens that the feeding
rate may be varied according to the feed supply and the
market demand. For sensible process equipment like the
entrained flow gasifier, the feeding rate variation should
be done carefully as this will affect the syngas
temperature and composition. In order to minimize big
variations in downstream process equipment, the syngas
outlet temperature and thermal calorific value (mainly
represented in the H
2
/CO ratio) should be held constant.
This was studied on Aspen Plus for the three proposed
routes, and similar behaviors were observed. Fig. 2a
shows the results for the CBtL route. It appears that in
case of decreasing the feed rate, the corresponding O
2

and steam flow rates should be increased. The increase in
the flow of the gasifying agents leads to the increase in
the CO
2
fraction of the syngas, and hence the load on the
acid gas removal unit will increase.
For the three proposed routes in the is work, it was
found that for constant solid feed rate (115 t/h in this
work), and by holding the syngas calorific value at 800
MW
th
, the increase in the lambda value leads to
remarkable increase in the syngas outlet temperature as
shown in Fig. 2b for the CBtL route. About 9% increase
in the lambda value results in approximately 190
o
C
increase in the syngas outlet temperature, and vice versa.
This may be attributed to the increased carbon oxidation
leading to higher exothermicity. On the other hand, the
increase in the lambda value leads to a small decrease in
the H
2
/CO ratio. This decrease may be attributed to be the
net effect of the increased rates of carbon oxidation,
reverse water gas shift reaction and forward water gas
reaction according to Le Chatelier principle. On the other
hand, the effect of steam to solid feed ratio was studied at
the same feed rate and adding the syngas calorific value
as a new variable. As shown in Fig. 2c for the CBtL
route, as the steam to solid feed ratio increases, the
syngas outlet temperature decreases and the calorific
value of the syngas increases. This may be attributed to
the increase in the rate of the endothermic water gas
reaction.
The contradictory effects observed for the oxygen
and steam on the syngas temperature and H
2
/CO ratio
indicates the necessity of the careful choice of their
operational flow rates. The criteria for selecting the
values of lambda and steam to solid feed ratios for each
of the three proposed routes were to have the outlet
syngas temperature 1315
o
C as mentioned in the process
description, have the thermal power of syngas 800 MW
th

as mentioned in section 2.2, and to have the selected
ratios within the ranges mentioned in section 2.3. Fig. 3
presents the values that satisfy these criteria for the three
proposed routes. The significantly greater oxygen flow
rate for the CtL route may be attributed to the lower
oxygen content of MC compared to M*G.

0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65
H
2
/
C
O

r
a
t
i
o

i
n

s
y
n
g
a
s
S
y
n
g
a
s

t
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

i
n

o
C
Lambda
Temperature
H2/CO
780
790
800
810
820
830
840
1150
1200
1250
1300
1350
1400
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
S
y
n
g
a
s

c
a
l
o
r
i
f
i
c

v
a
l
u
e

i
n

M
W
t
h
S
y
n
g
a
s

t
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

i
n

o
C
Steam/feed ratio
Temperature
Calorific value
(a)
(b)
(c)
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
90 100 110 120
C
O
2
f
r
a
c
t
i
o
n

i
n

s
y
n
g
a
s
G
a
s
i
f
y
i
n
g

a
g
e
n
t

r
a
t
i
o
Feed flow rate in t/h
Lambda
Steam/Feed
CO2 in syngas

Figure 2: Parametric study results of feed rates and
ratios. a) effect of feed rate, b) effect of lambda, c) effect
of steam

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
BtL
CtL
CBtL
Fraction
Steam to
Feed
Lambda


Figure 3: Selected gasifying agents ratios of the three
routes

5.2 Syngas flow and composition
Due to the differences in the proximate and ultimate
analysis of the feed solids in the three routes, the
occurrence of some variations in the syngas flow and
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
1213
composition is predicted. Table II presents the syngas
flow and composition in different processing stages and
before being introduced to the FT reactor. Compared to
the BtL route, the syngas in the CtL route was
characterized by high fraction of CO and low fraction of
CO
2
. These two facts may be attributed to the low oxygen
to carbon ratio of the parent coal. The amount of water
vapor in the syngas generated in the BtL route was much
higher than the CtL route mainly because of the higher
contents of moisture and volatile matter in M*G. As
predicted, the syngas produced from the CBtL route has
intermediate behavior between both CtL and BtL routes.
The high CO content in the syngas produced from the
CtL route has resulted in much lower H
2
/CO ratio
compared to the BtL route, and hence the fraction of
syngas directed to the WGS reactor is higher. This should
lead to higher WGS reactor volume for the CtL route, a
factor that should be taken in account in the economic
assessment. In the WGS reactor, CO reacts with steam
forming CO
2
and H
2
. As the fraction of syngas directed to
the WGS reactor in the CtL route is higher, much amount
of CO
2
was formed, and thus the total amount of CO
2

produced from both the gasifier and WGS in the three
routes were comparable. As shown in Table II as well,
the compositions of the different syngas components after
the WGS are within the same range, and they are nearly
identical after CO
2
removal.
The factor which is different in the three routes is the
flow rate of the syngas after the different processing
stages. After the WGS and water removal, the flow rate
of the syngas in the BtL route becomes 32% and 26%
lower than those of the CtL and CBtL respectively
despite being higher than both routes directly after the
gasifier. The reason behind that is the higher amount of
water vapor in the syngas in the BtL route, and which
have been condensed in the water removal section. The
net syngas flow rate directed to the FT reactor after the
syngas processing is of great importance as this will
affect the yields of the different products after the
hydroprocessing steps in addition to the amount of
electric power generated. The CtL has net syngas flow
rate 10% and 28% higher than the CBtL and BtL routes
respectively, and this is considered a significant point of
strength.

5.3 Yields of products, byproducts and waste streams
In addition to the diesel, naphtha and LPG products,
the process generates some saleable byproducts like slag
and CO
2
and it also generates big amounts of wastewater
streams. Table III presents the yields of the products,
byproducts and waste streams for BtL, CtL and CBtL
routes using both absolute and specific units. As
predicted from the previous section, the CtL has the
maximum total yields of the different products, and the
BtL has the lowest yields. The CBtL route proved to be
very competitive to the CtL route in terms of the main
products yields. The diesel and naphtha yields in the
CBtL route are only 3% and 2% respectively lower than
the CtL, while they are 29% and 36% lower in the BtL
route. It is also clear that the LPG yields in all the routes
are low in accordance with [18, 20]. The calculation of
the main products yields using specific units (kg/t feed) is
useful in defining and calculating a process performance




Table II: Syngas composition and flow at different
processing stages

Feed Type BtL CtL CBtL
Directly after the gasifier
Total flow in t/h 226.1 190.9 200.9
CO in mol.% 24.8 60.2 48.2
CO
2
in mol.% 10.8 0.5 4.6
H
2
in mol.% 28.2 38.4 36.8
H
2
O in mol.% 36.2 0.9 10.3
Directly after the WGS and water removal
Total flow in t/h 163.5 240.9 220.3
CO in mol.% 24.8 25.9 25.8
CO
2
in mol.% 25.3 22.0 22.3
H
2
in mol.% 49.7 51.9 51.7
H
2
O in mol.% 0.3 0.3 0.3
Directly after the CO
2
removal
Total flow in t/h 81.5 113.2 102
CO in mol.% 33.1 33.1 33.1
CO
2
in mol.% 0.3 0.3 0.3
H
2
in mol.% 66.2 66.3 66.3
H
2
O in mol.% 0.4 0.3 0.3

parameter named Liquid fuel recovery (LFR) as shown in
equation 5. The LFR was found to be 16.6, 23.9, and
23.2% for BtL, CtL and CBtL respectively confirming
the high competitiveness of the CBtL route.
100 *
amount feed Solid
yield Naphtha yield oil Diesel
LFR (5)
Table III shows that CO
2
is the main byproduct from
the three routes, with the CtL having the highest value
and the BtL the lowest probably because of the difference
in the fixed carbon content of MC and M*G. It is
interesting to note that the CO
2
yields are about 4.5 times
the yields of the main products indicating that the CO
2

utilization will significantly affect the plant economics.
In addition to the possibility of carbon capture and
storage, which is a costly technique mainly targeting the
mitigation of CO
2
emissions to the global warming, CO
2

can be a source of revenue because of its potential
application in oil wells, chemical industries including
urea, methanol and carbonated soft drinks, and fire
extinguishers. Not only shall these applications generate
a source of revenue to the plant, but also this should help
reduce CO
2
emissions in a way similar to the zero-
discharge concept. The plant site selection should
consider the marketing of CO
2
gas among the other
factors. Another important byproduct from the three
routes is the slag produced from the gasifier. As shown in
Table III, the slag yield in the CtL route is the highest
while that of the BtL is the lowest simply because of the
higher ash content in MC compared to M*G. According
to [40], the slag can be used as a construction material,
and hence it can also generate additional revenues for the
plant.
Huge amount of wastewater is generated in the three
routes especially in the BtL route as shown in Table III.
The main wastewater streams are that separated after the
WGS reactor in addition to that separated after FT
reactor. The wastewater daily amount will affect both the
capital cost of the corresponding wastewater treatment
plant in addition to the operating cost of the related
chemicals and electricity. Any idea to minimize the
amount of generated wastewater through techniques like
recycling and segregation shall have a significant effect
on the process economics. One idea is to recycle part of
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
1214
Table III: Yields of products, byproducts and wastes
(Values in t/h, and the values in brackets in kg/t feed)

Feed Type BtL CtL CBtL
Main products
Diesel oil 14 (120) 19.2 (167) 18.6 (162)
Naphtha 5 (46) 8 (72) 8 (71)
LPG 1 (9) 3 (25) 2 (19)
Byproducts
Slag 2 (22) 8 (69) 7 (56)
CO
2
94 (818) 126 (1093) 117 (1017)
Waste streams
Wastewater 199 (1734) 83 (722) 113 (986)

the wastewater either as it is or after partial treatment to
be used in quenching the product gases in the entrained
flow gasifier.

5.4 Energy integration analysis
The hot and cold composite curves and the grand
composite curves of the three routes were found to have
similar trends, with just some changes in the values of
heat duties and temperature. Fig. 4a and 4b show
respectively the cold and hot composite curves and the
grand composite curves of the CBtL route. These two
figures show that the process doesnt need external
heating utilities, while much external cooling utilities are
required. These findings are in accordance with [18]. Fig.
4a has also shown that the heat integration conducted
through the pinch analysis has saved much energy in the
so-called heat recovery region. As shown in Table IV,
the cooling duties in the three routes are comparable with
the CtL being the maximum and the BtL the minimum.
The corresponding cooling water requirements are
massive in the range of 20,000 t/h. Of course, the
economics of any process shall be bad in case of using an
open cycle for the cooling water. Accordingly, closed
cycle cooling towers will be installed in the process so as
to minimize the cooling water requirements. Due to the
water lost by evaporation and blow down in the cooling
towers, make-up water in the range of 3-5% is required
[41], and hence the cooling water requirements will be
much lowered as shown in Table IV. Taking the makeup
cooling water requirements as another process
performance indicator, the CBtL clearly outperforms
CtL. However, still the makeup water requirements are
huge, and accordingly the transformation to air coolers
may be a viable alternative in case of lacking the access
to cheap source of water.

Table IV: Heating and cooling duties in the three routes

Feed Type BtL CtL CBtL
Heating duty (MJ/h) 0 0 0
Cooling duty (MJ/h) 8.07E+05 8.69E+05 8.1E+05
Total cooling water
(m
3
/h)
19,046 20,612 18,999
Makeup cooling
water (m
3
/h)
757 819 755
Makeup cooling
water (m
3
/t feed)
6.6 7.1 6.6

5.5 Net energy analysis
The net electricity generation and overall thermal
efficiency are significantly important performance
indicators that may overbalance a route over another.
Most of the energy consumption and generation values
were generated by the simulation models of the three
routes. The specific power consumption of oxygen
production was taken as 300 kWh/ton O
2
and that of the
CO
2
removal was taken as 1 MJ/kg CO
2
[5]. The overall
process energy efficiency for the three routes was
calculated using the following equation [5]:
100 *
, ,
.
, ,
.
in fuel in fuel
net out fuel out fuel
overall
LHV m
y Electricit LHV m
(6)
Fig. 5 compares the main power consumption and
generation sources in the three routes. It is clear that both
the power consumption and generation values are the
highest for the CtL route and lowest for the BtL. Fig. 5
also shows that the O
2
production is the highest power
consumption source in the plant, and that the gas turbine
is the biggest power generator. Table V presents both the
overall thermal efficiency and the net electricity
generation (export power) in the three routes. As shown,
the export power in the CtL route is higher than the other
routes. On the other hand, the overall thermal efficiency
of the BtL route has the highest value while that of the
CtL route is the lowest in accordance with [8]. Table V
also shows that the overall thermal efficiency values of
all the routes were significantly improved
by adding the net electricity generation in consideration.
The CBtL route has intermediate net electricity
generation and overall thermal efficiency values.

Table V: Electricity consumption and generation sources
of the three routes

Feed Type BtL CtL CBtL
Overall thermal efficiency (%)
Excluding net
electricity
47.6 37.8 42.4
Including net
electricity
52.1 44.1 48.1

Net electricity
generation (MW)
22.6 58.0 45.2

5.6 GHG emission analysis
The degree of GHG emissions is one of the important
performance indicators from the sustainability point of
view. The main sources of GHG emissions in the three
routes are the process CO
2
produced after gasification
and WGS reactor, the amounts which are separated in the
CO
2
removal section, in addition to the CO
2
produced
from combusting the syngas in the CHP section. Table VI
shows that the total CO
2
produced from the BtL route is
the lowest followed by the CBtL and CtL. Knowing that
the biomass is carbon neutral as it just emits the CO
2

absorbed during its growth, the GHG emissions of the
BtL route is considered to be zero and hence it is the
most environment-friendly route from the climate change
point of view. Using the same concept, only 70% of the
CO
2
emissions of the CBtL route were considered to be
GHG emissions. Thus, the CBtL route outperforms the
CtL in this performance indicator as well.

Table VI: GHG emissions in the three routes

Feed Type BtL CtL CBtL
Process CO
2
(t/h) 94.0 125.7 116.9
CHP CO
2
(t/h) 28.4 47.9 41.3
Total GHG (t/t feed) 0 1.5 1.0
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
1215
(a)
(b)
BtL CtL CBtL
Steam Turbines 3.8 24.5 17.2
Gas Turbines 91.7 157.0 134.1
CO2 Removal -3.3 -4.5 -4.1
O2 Compression -6.5 -9.4 -8.3
O2 Production -12.8 -21.9 -19.2
CHP Air Compression -49.2 -84.1 -71.7
-150.0
-100.0
-50.0
0.0
50.0
100.0
150.0
200.0
E
l
e
c
t
r
i
c
i
t
y

C
o
n
s
u
m
p
t
i
o
n
/
G
e
n
e
r
a
t
i
o
n

i
n

M
W






































































Figure 4: Composite curves of the CBtL route. a) hot and cold composite, b) grand composite
Figure 5: Sources of electricity consumption and generation in the three routes
22nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 23-26 June 2014, Hamburg, Germany
1216
6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The technical performance of BtL, CtL and CBtL
routes using Miscanthus energy crop and Maghara
Egyptian coal as feedstocks was evaluated by building
process models in Aspen Plus and defining process
performance indicators to be used in comparison. The
performance indicators chosen in this work are the flow
rates of the gasifying agents (steam and oxygen), yields
of the liquid fuel products, yields of CO
2
(the main
byproduct), yields of wastewater, cooling water
requirements, net electricity production, overall thermal
efficiency, and GHG emissions.
The CtL route was found to have the highest oxygen
consumption and the lowest steam consumption and vice
versa with the BtL route, while the CBtL route had
intermediate consumption figures. After the WGS and
CO
2
removal, the compositions of the different syngas
components are nearly identical for the three routes. On
the other hand, the factor which is different in the three
routes is the flow rate of the syngas which is maximum
for the CtL route and minimum for the BtL route.
Defining the Liquid fuel recovery (LFR) percentage as
the amount of liquid fuels produced per ton of solid feed,
it was found that the LFR percentages for BtL, CtL and
CBtL were 16.6, 23.9, and 23.2 respectively. This
indicates that the CBtL route is competitive to the CtL
route in this performance indicator. CO
2
is the main
byproduct from the three routes, with the CtL having the
highest value and the BtL the lowest. It was observed that
the CO
2
yields are about 4.5 times the yields of the main
products indicating that the CO
2
utilization will
significantly affect the plant economics for the three
routes. On the other hand, huge amount of wastewater is
generated in the three routes especially in the BtL route,
while the CtL route is the lowest. Accordingly,
minimizing the amount of generated wastewater through
techniques like recycling and segregation shall have a
significant effect on the process economics of each route.
The energy integration performed through the PTA
realized that the process in each route doesnt need
external heating utilities, while much external cooling
utilities are required. The cooling duties in the three
routes are comparable with the CtL being the maximum.
Taking the makeup cooling water requirements as
another process performance indicator, the CBtL clearly
outperforms CtL with 6.6 vs. 7.1 m
3
/t feed. However, still
the makeup water requirements are huge, and accordingly
the transformation to air coolers may be a viable
alternative in case of lacking the access to cheap source
of water. The net electricity generation in the CtL route is
257% and 128% higher than BtL and CBtL routes
respectively. On the other hand, it has the lowest overall
thermal efficiency with 44% compared to 52% and 48%
for BtL and CBtL respectively. The GHG emissions of
BtL are zero, while the CBtL outperforms CtL again with
1.0 versus 1.5 t GHG/t feed.
Thus, as expected, the BtL route will be excluded as a
currently possible route for the production of diesel fuel
in Egypt. In addition to not being yet commercialized,
BtL suffers from bad performance indicators such as low
liquid fuel yields, low export power, and huge
wastewater amounts. On the other hand, and based on the
performance indicators chosen in thus study, CtL and
CBtL seems to be promising routes for the production of
diesel fuel in Egypt. CBtL (70-30 Maghara Coal-
Miscanthus blend) was found to be very competitive to
CtL. In addition to having nearly comparable liquid fuel
yields, CBtL route surpasses the CtL in four out of the
nine performance indicators chosen in this study; namely
less O
2
consumption, higher overall thermal efficiency,
less cooling water requirements, and less GHG
emissions.
In addition to this technical perspective, the
utilization of the Egyptian Maghara coal in either CtL or
CBtL will solve a national strategic problem. Maghara
coal mine historically faces marketing problems because
of its non-coking nature inhibiting its use in iron and steel
industry, and the potential environmental problems which
may take place if used in conventional power production
plants because of its high sulfur content. Accordingly, the
results of this study encourages performing economic
assessment of both the CtL and CBtL routes in Egypt,
and this will be the subject of a subsequent paper.


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