A life cycle analysis of deploying coking technology to utilize low-rank coal in China

Abstract

At present, the excess capacity in China's coke industry can be deployed to utilize some low-rank coal, replacing coking coal with potential economic gains, energy efficiency, and environmental benefits. This study presents a life cycle analysis to model these potential benefits by comparing a metallurgical coke technical pathway with technical pathways of gasification coke integrated with different chemical productions. The results show that producing gasification coke is a feasible technical pathway for the transformation and development of the coke industry. However, its economic feasibility depends on the price of cokes and coals. The gasification coke production has higher energy consumption and CO2 emissions because of its lower coke yield. Generally speaking, using gasification coke to produce F-T oils has higher economic benefits than producing methanol, but has lower energy efficiency and higher carbon emissions.