The executive operation of the carbon dioxide recycling project at Fanavaran Petrochemical Company in Khuzestan Province has started last weekend.
Iran’s largest environmental project in the field of CO2 capture will have an annual CO2 recycling capacity of 160,000 tons, the Naftiha website reported.
Referring to the company’s prioritization of environmental issues, the managing director said the project has environmental benefits as it will recycle the CO2 emitted from the stack of methanol unit at the Fanavaran Petrochemical Company as well as the CO2 produced in the region.
“The project has the potential of capturing a considerable amount of this pollutant, the release of which has a significant impact on environmental pollution,” Mohammad Javad Badri added.
According to the official, the captured CO2 will be converted to methanol, helping increase the production capacity of the product by up to 50,000 tons per year.
“Using recycled CO2 as feed for the methanol production unit will also help reduce gas consumption, which is primarily used as feedstock, by 15 million cubic meters per year. It is estimated that the project will cost $30 million and will be completed within two years,” he said.
The methanol production from CO2 has several advantages over the conventional process, as it results in significantly less byproducts and requires less energy in product purification.
CO2 is a natural and essential component of life, accounting for 0.03% of the atmosphere. Plants require CO2 to grow (photosynthesis), and in the process release oxygen into the atmosphere. CO2 is produced naturally by the decay of all organic materials. It is also a byproduct of many industrial processes, emitted whenever fossil fuels are burned.
But in environmental terms, CO2 is a cause for concern because it is a major contributor to global warming and many countries have pledged to reduce it in line with international treaties like the Kyoto Protocol – an international agreement aimed at reducing CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Raising Output
Fanavaran Petrochemical Company has also recently started the construction of a petro-olefin plant with an annual production capacity of 1.65 million tons of products.
Located in Mahshahr Special Economic Zone, the plant’s completion will help prevent the sale of raw materials. It will use natural gas as feedstock to produce methanol and then turn it to 280,000 tons of linear light and heavy polyethylene and 450,000 tons of polypropylene annually, along with other products.
Up until 2007, methanol was used only as a chemical, but the completion of methanol value chain gained momentum after methanol to olefin and methanol to propylene projects were accelerated, which have a bigger profit margin.
Data from the National Petrochemical Company show Iran accounts for 5% of the world's total methanol production with exports to Iraq, China, the UAE, India and South Korea.
In the petrochemical industry, methanol is used to create high-quality chemicals, the most important of which are formaldehyde, acetic acid, MTBE, methyl methacrylate, methyl chloride and methylamines, which are processed to produce other derivatives.
With the launch of new methanol plants, net methanol output capacity has doubled in two years and reached 12.2 million tons per year.
The global methanol market is expected to grow at a significant rate in the coming years, driven mainly by the increasing use of methanol (in the form of fuel and antifreeze agent) in the automotive industry.
The methanol industry has experienced an explosive growth, primarily in China and the United States, owing to significant developments in shale gas.
