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Reactive Distillation for Methanol Synthesis: Parametric Studies and Optimization Using a Non-polar Solvent

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Abstract

Reactive distillation (RD) for methanol synthesis offers the advantage of process integration by combining reaction and separation in a single equipment and utilization of the reaction exotherm in the separation. The feasibility of RD for methanol synthesis using a polar solvent has already been demonstrated in an earlier work by Ghosh and Seethamraju (Chem Eng Process - Process Intensif, 145:107673, 2019) using a polar solvent. Since reaction and distillation occur simultaneously in the same column, the effect of operating and design parameters of the column is crucial for its performance. In this paper, the effects of different operating and design parameters have been presented using squalane—a non-polar solvent. Performance of RD for methanol synthesis was evaluated in terms of conversion of reactants, productivities of methanol and water, and purities of the product streams. Operating parameters like reflux ratio, solvent flow rate, and feed temperatures, and design parameters like addition of reactive and non-reactive stages were found to affect the column performance significantly. Based on the results from the parametric studies, optimization of the RD column was performed to maximize the methanol production in the liquid distillate. Conversions of CO and H2 were found to increase respectively from 52.9% and 36.8% in the base case to 78.4% (48% increase) and 54% (47% increase) in the optimum cases. Methanol productivity also increased by 47% relative to the base case with enhancement in separation of the produced methanol.

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Abbreviations

(r-)WGS:

(Reverse) Water gas shift

BP:

Bottom product

DME:

Dimethyl ether

LD:

Liquid distillate

MTBE:

Methyl tertiary butyl ether

RD:

Reactive distillation

RR:

Refluxed rectifier

TEGDME:

Tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether

VD:

Vapor distillate

VLE:

Vapor liquid equilibrium

E i :

Activation energy for reaction “i”

F 0,S :

Flow rate of solvent feed stream

F j :

Fugacity of species “j”

K eq,i :

Equilibrium constant of reaction “i”

k i :

Pre-exponential factor of rate expression for reaction “i”

Q k :

Heat duty of stage “k”

R :

Universal gas constant

r i :

Rate of reaction “i”

T :

Temperature

T 0,G :

Temperature of syngas feed stream

T 0,S :

Temperature of solvent feed stream

T k :

Temperature of stage “k”

T ref :

Reference temperature

W :

Total weight of catalyst in the column

w k :

Weight of catalyst on stage “k”

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Industrial Research and Consultancy Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Ministry of Human Resource Development, India, for providing the scholarship to SG during his graduate studentship. The authors also gratefully acknowledge Aspen Tech for providing the software used in this work. The authors are also thankful to the anonymous reviewers whose comments helped in improving the quality and presentation of this work. The authors also thank Prof. Ranjan Kumar Malik and Prof. Sanjay Mahajani from Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay for their advise and inputs during the final revision.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Shashwata Ghosh & Seethamraju Srinivas

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  1. Shashwata Ghosh
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  2. Seethamraju Srinivas
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Correspondence to Seethamraju Srinivas.

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Appendix

Appendix

The complete set of binary interaction parameters of Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state used in the simulations is given in Table 14. Binary interaction parameters for the solvent-component pairs were taken from Graaf et al. (1992), while the others were adopted from Khosla et al. (1991).

Table 14 Binary interaction parameters for Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state
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Ghosh, S., Seethamraju, S. Reactive Distillation for Methanol Synthesis: Parametric Studies and Optimization Using a Non-polar Solvent. Process Integr Optim Sustain 4, 325–342 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41660-020-00122-x

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