(17c) Renewable Energy to Synthetic Natural Gas

The utilization of renewable energy and carbon capture have become popular and essential topics in the energy industry during the past years due to increasing concerns about global warming. This paper studies the Sabatier reaction for methanation of CO2 from a fossil fuel power plant as a process step in the production of Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) utilizing renewable energy. The process is modeled using CHEMCAD process simulation software.

When renewable energy is used for electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen and combined with the Sabatier reaction, there is a pathway from renewable energy to SNG. The resulting SNG may be recycled back to the process resulting in near zero emissions or used elsewhere as a product.