Decision making with the deterministic judgment of urea production with various hydrogen sources: technical, economic, and environmental aspects

Abstract

Demand for urea is gradually increasing, and is also focused on producing economical urea production; accordingly, urea production is concentrated on existing coal-fired power stations. However, coal-fired-power-station-based electricity production causes environmental pollution and urea production should be converted to renewable-energy-based production. Until now, renewable-energy-based urea production has been less economical than coal-fired-power-plant-based urea production, so various technical, economic, and environmental perspectives are needed. In particular, urea production can involve the unit urea production cost, considering various scenarios by the direct use of carbon dioxide and the indirect use of hydrogen through ammonia. In this work, unit urea production was estimated in consideration of the various type of hydrogen (grey, brown, blue, green, pink, and turquoise) and evaluated with respect to technical, economic, and environmental perspectives through an analytic hierarchy process with deterministic judgments.