Do you think the currently popular MTO projects are economically viable?
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This post was last edited by jordan569 on 2013-1-6 23:27 :) MTO (methanol-to-olefins) is being developed both abroad and at home, but it doesn’t seem to have any economic advantages. Let’s all talk about it. Note: $ #, $ $
Plants with a capacity of millions of tons are currently under construction; they remain profitable given the current high oil prices, but the investment required is substantial. Moreover, the costs of raw materials upstream have also risen sharply, so caution is needed!
You can simply do some calculations: in MTO, the yield of ethylene plus propylene is around 38–40%, while that of C4+ is about 4–5%; the rest consists of wastewater and various impurities. If the price of methanol exceeds 2500–3000, then MTO is not economically viable, unless it is used in large coal-based chemical plants where the cost of methanol is lower, in which case MTO becomes economically feasible!
There definitely are. There are several large methanol production projects underway in China at the moment. If the methanol market does not perform well, MTO projects still have significant advantages. Moreover, olefins can be converted into polyolefins, so the market remains very promising:loveliness:
To date, there is no truly large-scale industrialized MTO/MTP. Based on raw material and product prices, MTP seems more promising, and given the current market conditions for olefins, it remains profitable.
The key factor is the cost of methanol. If it is produced from natural gas, there should still be a profit margin. However, in my opinion, using syngas to produce methanol is too energy-intensive; if methanol can be produced without relying on syngas, then the costs can be reduced. However, it seems that no industrialized processes have yet emerged; there are some processes in the research stage, for example, our laboratory is currently working on the production of dimethyl ether from sources other than syngas. It is also a highly exothermic reaction. As far as I know, the exothermic amount when methanol is produced from syngas at the reaction temperature is approximately 40 KJ/mol. But it is far below the heat required for syngas. I calculated that the heat release for the entire process in our laboratory is approximately 120 KJ/mol. Hehe, high heat release. It’s very tempting. We are now carrying out pilot-scale scaling up; I hope it will succeed. Hehe
The synthesis of methanol is exothermic in itself, and its energy consumption depends on various factors; in the case of traditional methanol production from syngas, the gas generation process is the most energy-intensive step. If a new method that does not rely on syngas can be used, it may be possible to avoid the energy-intensive gas production step and thus achieve energy savings. If you are referring to the reaction heat for synthesizing methanol from syngas, it is 90.8 kJ/mol for the reaction CO + 2H₂ → CH₃OH under standard conditions, and 49.6 kJ/mol for the reaction CO₂ + 3H₂ → CH₃OH + H₂O under standard conditions. Under the conditions of methanol synthesis by the low-pressure method, the actual heat released in the reaction is related to both temperature and pressure. Since CO2 releases less heat during methanol synthesis, and studies have shown that the kinetic process of synthesizing methanol from CO2 is more favorable than that using CO. Therefore, the ideal situation is that the syngas used for methanol synthesis contains ~5% CO2. I’m not sure what kind of new methanol synthesis reaction you mean by ‘methanol synthesis other than using syngas’ – could it be the gas-solid multiphase or a new liquid-phase synthesis method for directly producing methanol from natural gas? Also, under what conditions is an exothermic reaction of 120 kJ/mol occurring? I hope we can have further discussions on this topic. Thank you. This post was last edited by yucc on 2007-12-22 at 18:09.]
In today’s environment of high oil prices and low coal prices, the economic advantages of using coal to produce gas => synthesize methanol => produce olefins are quite evident. The thing is... I can’t understand oil prices, so I can’t figure out what its future will hold! !
You’re absolutely right; among the three major fossil fuels, oil resources are linked to oil dollars and are closely related to **, with their price factors being extremely complex. Thanks to its abundant coal resources and lack of external constraints, our country can develop more steadily from an industrial perspective. As raw materials for the energy and chemical industries, even if oil prices decline in the future, it will not have a significant impact on China’s coal chemical industry, particularly on those large enterprises that possess abundant coal resources. As for natural gas, the rapid increase in domestic demand for various types of natural gas for household use, coupled with stable prices, means that natural gas companies can earn substantial profits simply by selling gas. Therefore, from an economic perspective, natural gas chemistry is not promising, unless it involves natural gas that is located in remote areas where transportation is difficult and is not produced in large quantities.