Dry reforming of methane to syngas: a potential alternative process for value added chemicals-a techno-economic perspective.

During the past decade, there has been increasing global concern over the rise of anthropogenic CO2 emission into the Earth's atmosphere (J Air Waste Manage Assoc 53:645-715, 2003). The utilization of CO2 to produce any valuable product is need of the hour. The production of syngas from CO2 and CH4 seems to be one of the promising alternatives in terms of industrial utilization, as it offers several advantages: (a) mitigation of CO2, (b) transformation of natural gas and CO2 into valuable syngas, and (c) producing syngas with H2/CO ratio 1 which may further be used for the production of valuable petrochemicals (J Air Waste Manage Assoc 53:645-715, 2003). A conceptual design for the production of synthesis gas by dry reforming of methane is presented here. An economic assessment of this process with an integrated methanol production section as a case was conceptualized and compared with the conventional steam methane reforming route to produce methanol. The economic study indicated that dry reforming of natural gas/methane is a competitive process with lower operating and capital costs in comparison with steam reforming assuming negligible cost of CO2 import.