A review on renewable energy-based chemical engineering design and optimization

Abstract

The sources and utilization of energy directly affect the development of chemical industries. Traditional fossil energy is the main contributor to the current chemical energy supply system. The challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss caused by fossil fuels are becoming increasingly severe, thus inspiring the exploration of sustainable non-fossil energy conversion technologies. This review comprehensively summarizes the application of cutting-edge conversion technologies and the production of non-fossil energy end products in terms of hydrogen production, biofuel production, power generation system and cogeneration processes. Among these, a renewable energy-combined heat and power system can better convert potential energy but electricity and heat. The process design, optimization of key parameters, environmental benefits, techno-economic analysis, thermodynamic efficiency analysis, and response surface methodology analysis of different non-fossil energy thermochemical hydrogen production technologies are discussed. Emerging plasma gasification technology exhibits higher energy efficiency and lower carbon emissions than traditional thermochemical conversion technologies. Nevertheless, further research is required on the process design and optimization of non-fossil energy utilization systems, particularly in optimizing key operating parameters to reduce non-fossil energy processing and facility costs. Finally, the challenges and prospects of non-fossil energy thermochemical conversion technologies are presented to maximize the inherent energy conversion potential of non-fossil energy sources.