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Techno-economic Analysis

The Techno-Economic Analysis (TÖA) group investigates the production and use of alternative fuels, combustibles and (basic) chemicals in cooperation with diverse partners from industry and research. Since 2013, the department has been investigating and optimising a wide variety of production processes with its know-how in chemical process technology. This includes in detail

• Detailed process simulation in Aspen Plus, process engineering process analysis to quantify and, if necessary, increase the efficiency, evaluation of small-scale trials, heat integration using pinch analysis, material and energy embedding in greenfield and brownfield environments, and adaptation to varying local conditions.
• Techno-economic process analysis and optimisation using a standardised methodology for estimating the manufacturing costs of large-scale process plants, partly also derived from small-scale trials and scaled up. 
• A software tool developed in-house, TEPET (Techno-Economic Process Evaluation Tool), enables the automated calculation of manufacturing costs and is constantly being further developed in the course of diverse applications. It is based on an open, transparent database, e.g. for equipment costs, surcharge factors for calculating investment costs, costs for raw and auxiliary materials, etc. The tool can be used, among other things, to calculate production costs automatically. With this tool, the influence of all process parameters and input variables of the process simulation on large-scale product costs can be mapped (local and global sensitivity analyses) and uncertainty analyses can be created. Information for the improvement of individual process stages in a process chain can be made available to potential development partners.
• Life cycle analysis (LCA): Techno-ecological process assessment with a standardised methodology to estimate possible environmental impacts (e.g. Global Warming Potential, GWP) of the production of alternative fuels. Analogous to the techno-economic process assessment, the software tool TEPET and an automated coupling to Brightway2 can be used to map the influence of all process parameters and input variables on ecological impact variables. The commercial database Ecoinvent and own transparent databases with literature and/or project data serve as a basis. Development partners can be provided with information on how to improve individual process stages in a process chain.

The focus of the group lies in the comprehensive use of the acquired knowledge for the development of promising options for the provision of chemical energy sources and renewable fuels in order to defossilise energy-intensive industrial processes and all transport sectors, including aviation and shipping. In addition to pure chemical synthesis, the group also has expertise in evaluating the need for PV and wind power for PtX plants as well as the large-scale transport of hydrogen or other PtX products. For this purpose, an extensive network from industry and research is maintained and constantly expanded.

Challenges include the mapping of new, innovative process steps (often on a very small scale), the development of new process concepts, interconnections and links with upstream and downstream plants, the expansion of the methodology in terms of accuracy, scope and flexibility, the inclusion of further cost components (renewable energy generation, logistics, distribution, ...) and the development of long-term sustainability strategies for entire sectors.

Our work to date on techno-economic and techno-ecological process analysis includes:

• The production of sustainable air fuel via the Fischer-Tropsch route, optionally with biomass or CO2, with or without the support of electrolytically produced hydrogen (link to paper).
• Detailed illustration of the biomass gasification of different feedstocks and different gasifier types
• Optimisation of the BtL process with regard to local boundary conditions and waste heat utilisation (sweet spot analysis)
• Process optimisation of the PtL process based on a comprehensive parameter variation and estimation of the uncertainty of the cost estimate
• Generation of electricity-based fuels such as ammonia, dimethyl carbonate, dimethyl ether, methyl formate, methane, methanol, oxymethylene ether, etc.
• Design of large-scale hydrogen production plants based on global PV and wind power potentials as well as ship transport from remote regions of the world for future renewable energy imports
• Analysis of a novel BtL process (hydropyrolysis in liquid salt melt) and its coupling with an existing industrial process (pulp production) for biomass supply