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Language: English

Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received June 19, 2011
Accepted October 11, 2011

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Economic evaluations of direct, indirect and hybrid coal liquefaction

Jong-Soo Bae In Sung Hwang Yeong-Jin Kweon Young-Chan Choi¹ Se Joon Park¹ Hak-Joo Kim¹ Heon Jung¹ Choon Han^†

Department of Chemical Engineering, Kwangwoon University, 447-1, Wolgye-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul 139-701, Korea ¹Clean Fossil Energy Research Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research, 102, Gajeong-ro, Yuseoung-gu, Daejeon 305-343, Korea

chan@kw.ac.kr

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, July 2012, 29(7), 868-875(8), 10.1007/s11814-011-0266-3

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Abstract

The various geopolitical problems associated with oil have rekindled interest in coal, with many countries working on projects for its liquefaction. This study established the feasibility of coal liquefaction through a technical and economic examination of direct coal liquefaction (DCL), indirect coal liquefaction (ICL) and hybrid coal liquefaction (HCL) processes. An economic efficiency analysis was prepared involving costs of initial investment, annual operating and raw coal purchase and revenues from the sale of major products as key variables. For the raw materials, products and investments, analyses of net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and sensitivity were carried out. The processes’ IRRs were found to be 22.26% (DCL), 18.43% (ICL) and 20.90% (HCL). NPVs were $4.720m (DCL), $3.811 m (ICL) and $4.254 m (HCL), and payback periods were DCL 3.3 years, ICL 4.2 years, and HCL 3.6 years. As a result of the sensitivity analysis, factors greatly affecting the earning potential of coal liquefaction included product prices, raw coal prices, and construction costs, which showed similar effects in each process.

Keywords

Coal to Liquid Direct Coal Liquefaction Indirect Coal Liquefaction Hybrid Coal Liquefaction Sensitivity Analysis Economic Evaluation

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