Thermo-environomic optimisation strategy for fuel decarbonisation process design and analysis

•Systematic thermo-environomic optimisation of fuel decarbonisation process options.•Assessment of environmental benefit, energetic and economic costs of carbon capture.•Decision support to identify optimal process designs taking into account trade-offs.•Process integration reveals to be a key for the competitiveness of CO2 capture.

To meet the CO2 reduction targets and ensure sustainable energy supply, the development and deployment of cost-competitive innovative low-carbon energy technologies is essential. To design and evaluate the competitiveness of such complex integrated energy conversion systems, a systematic thermo-environomic optimisation strategy for the consistent modelling, comparison and optimisation of fuel decarbonisation process options is developed. The environmental benefit and the energetic and economic costs are assessed for several carbon capture process options. The performance is systematically compared and the trade-offs are assessed to support decision-making and identify optimal process configurations with regard to the polygeneration of H2, electricity, heat and captured CO2. The importance of process integration in the synthesis of efficient decarbonisation processes is revealed. It appears that different process options are in competition when a carbon tax is introduced. The choice of the optimal configuration is defined by the priorities given to the different thermo-environomic criteria.