Formalin is among the most important commodity chemicals, used mainly as a precursor to a wide range of value-added products. Currently, formalin is widely produced from methanol derived from natural ...gas, however a transition from fossil-based production to sustainable feedstocks and pathways is crucial. This study evaluates the environmental impacts of selected promising formalin production technologies to shape a pathway towards more sustainable production of key chemicals. Among the investigated production routes are through methane steam reforming of other fossil and renewable sources, hydrogenation of CO2, and direct conversion of methane, syngas or CO2. to formalin. A comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is performed for seven different formalin synthesis routes with higher readiness levels. Technologies utilizing waste CO2 and biogas from manure as feedstocks show the most promising results, reducing greenhouse gas footprint by roughly 60% compared to the conventional pathway. Results show that a key contribution to the environmental impact mitigation was the unburdening effect due to the use of waste and product's substitution. With this study, a more comprehensive outlook focusing on the environmental sustainability of formalin production is provided. Environmental performance and readiness levels of formalin production technologies utilizing renewable or waste feedstocks indicate that such pathways could be applied to industrial scale in the future.
•Formalin production routes with higher Technology Readiness Levels are studied.•Environmental impacts for selected formalin production technologies are evaluated.•Technologies utilizing waste CO2 and biogas from manure show promising results.•Greenhouse gas footprint is reduced by up to 60% compared to conventional pathway.•A key mitigation is unburdening effect due to waste use and product substitution.
Production of formalin, which is among the highest production volume chemicals, is highly energy-intensive; thus, reduction of energy use is very important in reducing cost and emissions. The aim of ...this and its larger overall research is to systemically analyze how to improve sustainability of processes producing formalin as an intermediate or final product. In this part of the work, energy consumption requirements are analyzed for the conventional formalin production process via methane steam reforming, where opportunities for energy consumption reduction are identified. This work will serve as a base case for further investigation of alternative formalin production pathways. To achieve energy savings, heat integration technology by combined pinch analysis and mathematical programming is applied. The formalin production process is simulated using Aspen HYSYS, and heat integration of the production process was performed based on simulated design using GAMS software. Economic and environmental footprint analyses were performed for both non-integrated and integrated designs. Results show that heat integration reduces heat consumption by around 39%, leading to a saving of 11% in capital cost and turning annual operating cost into positive revenue. Heat integration also improves the environmental aspect, where a 7–22% reduction in selected environmental footprints is achieved.
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