Simulation and evaluation of a process concept for the generation of synthetic fuel from CO2 and H2

•Process model of the generation of synthetic fuels from CO2, power and H2O developed.•100 MWLHV of H2 yields 1260 bbl/d of liquid hydrocarbon product.•A Power-to-Liquid efficiency of 43.3% arises.•Heat integration can reduce the energy losses to 25.6%.

Future aviation, shipping and heavy load transportation will continue to depend on energy carriers with a high energy density. The Power-to-Liquid technology is an approach to produce synthetic hydrocarbons, which fulfill this requirement. The proposed concept is based on H2 from electrolysis, which reacts with CO2 via the reverse water-gas shift reaction to syngas. Syngas is then synthesized to liquid hydrocarbons by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. A downstream product separation and upgrading section allows the production of defined fractions for specific applications. A flowsheet process model is build and heat integration is conducted. The input capacity is set to 100 MWLHV of H2. A total amount of 1260 bbl/d liquid hydrocarbons (67.1 MWLHV) is generated. The carbon conversion and the Power-to-Liquid efficiency, which is defined as the fraction of the electrical energy chemically bound into liquid hydrocarbons, are identified as the parameters to evaluate the overall process performance. The Power-to-Liquid efficiency is found to be 43.3%. The carbon conversion rate of 73.7% indicates the exploiting of the introduced CO2.