a technical and economic assessment of fuel oil hydrotreating technology for steam power plant so2 and nox emissions control

this work presents a simulation approach to the design and economic evaluation of fuel oil hydrotreating processes for control of so2 and nox emission in an iranian steam power plant. minimum amount of required fuel oil desulphurization was calculated from the limit of so2 emissions of power plants in two different scenarios based on (i) european and (ii) iranian so2 emission standards. based on these scenarios, the simulation and design of hds reactors, separation, heat recovery and amine gas sweetening sections were performed and economic assessment of plant has been investigated in each scenarios. the results indicate that cost price of each barrel of low sulfur fuel oil (lsfo) produced in such plants were estimated (i) 4.24 us$ and (ii) 3.17 us$, levelized costs of desulfurization in power production were estimated 0.618 c/kw-hr and 0.463 c/kw-hr and social cost savings of replacing every barrel of lsfo instead of one barrel of hsfo were estimated 26.7 us$ (i) and 13.6 us$ (ii).