Definition of a Thermodynamic Parameter to Calculate Carbon Dioxide Emissions in a Catalytic Reforming Process

Abstract

In the context of global warming, reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in oil and gas processes is an environmental and financial issue for process design and comparison. Environmental impact of a system can be determined by life cycle assessment (LCA). However this method presents limitations. Exergy is a thermodynamic function often chosen to complete LCA as it enables quantifying energetic efficiency of a process and takes into account the relation between the considered process and its environment. The aim of this work is to build a correlation between CO2 emissions and a thermodynamic quantity which depends on exergy. For the process under consideration, this correlation has the following asset: it enables CO2 emissions calculation without performing an LCA, when operating conditions are modified. The process studied here is naphtha catalytic reforming.

Keywords

• life cycle assessment, exergy analysis, carbon dioxide, oil industry, catalytic reforming