Carbon dioxide from oxy-fuel coal-fired power plant integrated green ammonia for urea synthesis: Process modeling, system analysis, and techno-economic evaluation

A high proportion of renewable energy integration will be one of the significant characteristics of future electric power grid, and power-to-NH3 technologies will become an important approach for inter-quarter long-term energy storage. Meanwhile, as an important method of peak regulation in power systems, coal-based power plant is necessary to implement CO2 capture. This study constructed a novel urea synthesis process based on renewable energy, including water electrolyzers, air separation, green ammonia, oxy-fuel combustion power plant, CO2 purification, and urea synthesis units. Coal-and natural gas-based urea synthesis processes were selected as the contrasting processes.The results showed that CO2 emissions from the novel process proposed in this work were 0.124-0.174 t CO2/t urea, which was much lower than that of the coal and natural gas-based urea processes (1.4 and 0.8 t CO2/t urea, respectively). In the current technical economy (with coal and natural gas prices of 450 CNY/t and 1.7 CNY/m3, respectively), the production cost of this new process was about 1.0-2.2 times higher than that of traditional processes. When the carbon tax values were 121 and 371 CNY/t, the total production costs of the natural gas-and coal-based urea process would exceed that of the new process, respectively. This study will provide a promising method for urea production based on renewable energy to realize CO2 utilization from coal-fired power plant.

Automated summary

A high proportion of renewable energy integration is a characteristic of future electric power grid, and power-to-NH3 technologies will be crucial for inter-quarter long-term energy storage. In addition, CO2 capture in coal-based power plants is essential for peak regulation. This study developed a novel urea synthesis process based on renewable energy, which resulted in significantly lower CO2 emissions compared to traditional coal and natural gas-based processes. While the production cost of the new process is higher, it becomes more economical when considering carbon tax values.