Production of methanol and electricity from biogenic waste integrating hydrothermal carbonization, sorption enhanced gasification, hot gas conditioning, plasma CO2 conversion and SOFC

This study presents the development and preliminary integration of Hydrothermal Carbonization (HTC), sorption-enhanced gasification (SEG), hot-gas cleaning (HGC), dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma-assisted CO₂ conversion, oxygen-selective membranes, methanol synthesis via membrane, and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) to produce methanol and electricity from biogenic waste. The system was investigated within the EU Horizon 2020 project GICO, combining laboratory and pilot-scale data and modelled in Aspen Plus for a 1 MWth biomass input. This paper builds upon previous work by extending the process model to include methanol synthesis and SOFC units. The focus is on both the development of individual subsystems and their preliminary integration within a unified process configuration. Initial outcomes show promising performance: the SEG process generates 21.2 kg/h of hydrogen (118 g/kgBiomass), which is utilized as an intermediate for methanol synthesis and SOFC operation. The system achieves a conversion efficiency based on the LHV of the input biomass of 28 % for methanol production (250 g/kgBiomass) and generates of 292 kWe and 279 kWth via SOFC, corresponding to 24 % electrical and 23 % thermal global LHV-based efficiencies, respectively (not considering the DBD consumption that can lead also to electricity requirement than generation) The corresponding global efficiencies reaches 52 %, increasing to 74 % with thermal recovery. These results represent an intermediate advancement in the development of production of methanol and electricity from biogenic waste, highlighting the potential of integrated biomass valorization pathways and underscoring the need for further optimization and experimental validation.