Tag: Production

One of the things that produced a lot of worried news headlines over the past couple of years is whether the energy transition is likely to lead to a shortage of sulphur as we switch away from fossil fuels on a large scale. As we’ve discussed in this magazine, those fears are overblown, certainly in the medium term future. Peter Harrison of CRU tackled the issue in his sulphur markets presentation at the recent Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid conference in New Orleans, and while he did admit to some reduction in sulphur supply from oil in the 2030s and increasing into the 2040s, increased sulphur recovered from sour gas is likely to more than make up for that at least until the 2040s. But one of the things that did strike me about his presentation is the extent to which the energy transition is indeed already changing the way that the sulphur market works, and will increasingly do so over the next few years.

The merchant market for sulphuric acid is only a small slice of overall global acid demand, dominated by smelter acid producers. Increasing replacement of acid imports by dedicated sulphur burning acid plants by end use consumers is reducing the scope for merchant sales and could lead to overcapacity in the near term.

In spite of changing patterns of demand, deglobalisation and environmental concerns, phosphate mining and acid-based processing are likely to be the mainstay of the industry for years to come.

Anggi Arifin Nasution and Aldifi Putro of PT Petrokimia Gresik detail an inventive redesign of their economiser, a critical component in sulphuric acid production, focusing on energy efficiency, decarbonisation, process optimisation, and equipment durability.

Low carbon production is attracting considerable attention to using syngas derivatives as fuels, but there are considerable logistical and commercial barriers to overcome.

SunGas Renewables Inc. has formed a new subsidiary, Beaver Lake Renewable Energy, LLC (BLRE), to construct a new green methanol production facility in central Louisiana. The project will have a capacity of 400,000 t/a of green methanol, using gasified biomass, specifically wood fibre from local, sustainably-managed forests as feedstock. The methanol will have a negative carbon intensity through sequestration of the nearly 1.0 million t/a of carbon dioxide produced by the project, which will be executed by Denbury Carbon Solutions. The methanol will then be used as a clean marine fuel by A.P. Moller–Maersk, which is building a fleet of methanol-powered container vessels.

The CO2 emissions in a hydrocarbon fed hydrogen plant occur largely during the energy intensive syngas production step. Hydrogen production is therefore a major factor in the CO2 emission balance of an ammonia plant. BASF’s OASE® technologies for CO2 capture are capable of achieving cost-effective 99.99% carbon capture at scale. In this article Elena Petriaeva and Bernhard Geis of BASF investigate different grey and blue hydrogen production technologies.

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is increasingly seen as a vital tool in the aviation sector’s transition to net zero. These drop-in fuels, which can be derived from bio and renewable-derived syngas, are used to dilute the fossil-derived components of fuel and are fully compatible with existing fuel infrastructure. This positions SAF as a convenient and rapid route towards decarbonisation. However, questions remain around its ultimate viability at scale and whether it really can be the ‘silver bullet’ aviation leaders are looking for. We spoke to Paul Ticehurst from Johnson Matthey (JM) to shed some light on SAF and the future role of syngas in aviation.

The US Inflation Reduction Act has been a major step in terms of incentivising green syngas production, and has encouraged other governments to look at their own regulatory regimes.

Plant digitalisation can contribute to increase the profitability of chemical plants by optimising performance of operation as well as maintenance. Available digital products range from visualisation of plant data for increased transparency to closed-loop AI controllers based on digital twins.