Master Thesis: Dynamic Modelling of a Green Methanol Plant and Investigation of Its Behavior During Load Changes

The chemical industry heavily depends on hydrogen for its processes and in particular for the production of base chemicals one of which is methanol, with 111 million tons produced in 2022 [1]. Consequently, the use of “green” hydrogen based on renewable energies plays a major role in the change towards a more sustainable industry [2]. One promising approach is the production of “green” methanol in which “green” hydrogen and carbon dioxide are directly converted to methanol [3, 4].

“Green” hydrogen is produced by water electrolysis using (excess) renewable energy. A key success factor of this technology is to align the production capacity with the availability of renewable (excess) energy in the power grid by highly flexible plants. As part of the H₂ Mare project, which is founded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, a dynamic model of an offshore green methanol plant shall be developed. The hydrogen which is used as feed for the methanol plant is produced offshore utilizing wind energy. Carbon dioxide is either coming from a direct air capture unit or transported in liquid form to the platform. A simplified flow diagram of the uhde green methanol process® developed by thyssenkrupp Uhde is shown below.

The basis for this joint work with thyssenkrupp Uhde, forms an existing model of the methanol synthesis loop (green box) in AVEVA Process Simulation environment. The model will be extended by the recycle loop from the methanol distillation (orange box) to describe the entire CO₂ based methanol production process. Furthermore, the work includes the implementation and investigation of a suitable control strategy to enable dynamic simulations. The dynamic simulations may be used to investigate the plant behaviour during load changes and to identify critical transition states.

• Review of existing literature
• Investigation of the existing AVEVA model and performing of a steadystate sensitivity analysis of the operating conditions for the methanol synthesis loop
• Investigation and extension of the existing control structures
• Dynamic simulation of the methanol synthesis loop, considering fast load changes with focus on critical transitional states
• Implementation of the outer recycle loop, including the distillation column, heat integration and the corresponding control structure
• Dynamic simulation of the entire system (both loops), considering fast load changes with focus on critical transitional states

• Interest in modelling and process control
• Programming skills (e.g. MATLAB, Python)
• Software skills (e.g. Aspen (ACM/Dynamics), Aveva or similar)

Your daily work will be mostly in German, but we prefer the thesis to be written in English.

[1] www.statista.com/statistics/1323406/methanol-production_worldwide/, (accessed: 24.10.2022)

[2] W. Grosse Entrup, Wasserstoff für eine CO2-neutrale Chemiebranche, https://www.vdi-nachrichten.com/aus-dem-vdi/wasserstoff-fuer-eine-co2-neutralechemiebranche/, 2021, (accessed: 21.10.2022)

[3] F. Nestler, V. P. Müller, M. Ouda, M. J. Hadrich, A. Schaadt, S. Bajohr, T. Kolb, React. Chem. Eng. 2021, 6 (6), 1092–1107. DOI: 10.1039/d1re00071c.

[4] F. Nestler, A. R. Schütze, M. Ouda, M. J. Hadrich, A. Schaadt, S. Bajohr, T. Kolb, Chem. Eng. J. 2020, 394 (December 2019), 124881. DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2020.124881.

Beginning: 15.01.2024 or upon availability

Duration: 6 month full time, student will be employed by ThyssenKrupp Uhde

Please e-mail your application including your CV and grades to patrick.lotz@tu-dortmund.de

Other responsible people:

• Sina Kunz, Tel.: 06196 / 205-1733, sina.kunz@thyssenkrupp.com
• Joel Stecker, Tel.: 0231 / 547-3185, joel.stecker@thyssenkrupp.com