Reaction / Separation

Design Project
2020-2021

Optimised Process Architecture

Reaction / Separation
Intensified reactor / separator

Case study : Methanol from Syngas

Methanol Project nov 2021

 Case Study 2021

Methanol synthesis from syngas

Methanol Project nov 2021

 Methanol synthesis

 Key substance in the C

chemical industry :
acetic acid, formaldehyde,
methylamine, DME
 Clean fuel for future
oriented-energy
 200,000 tons of methanol
is used as a chemical
feedstock or as a
transportation fuel … every
day

Methanol Project nov 2021

 Methanol synthesis ... from syngas

+ CO2

Methanol Project nov 2021

 Methanol synthesis from syngas

Green house effect

mitigation by catalytic
hydrogenation of CO2

Methanol Project nov 2021

 Syngas compositon … from
biomass gasification

Methanol Project nov 2021

 Your mission, should you choose to accept it

H2 : 68 %
CO : 29 % Methanol >> 95 %
CO2 : 2,5 %
N2 : 0,5 %

Methanol Project nov 2021

 High sensitivity to feed syngas composition

Methanol Project nov 2021

 To Do list 1 :
Reactions and Thermodynamic

 Reactions scheme Equilibrated reactions

(Low conversion at
 Kinetics models, equilibrium)
equilibrium constants Fast or slow ?

 Catalytic heterogeneous Kinetic models

reactions catalyst dependent
 Liquid and/or
Model ? VLE ? EoS ?
gas phase

Methanol Project nov 2021

 To Do list 1 :
Reactions and Thermodynamic

Methanol Project nov 2021

 To Do list 2 :
Unit Operations

Reactors (plug-flow, CSTR)

Distillation
columns

Compressors, Expanders
Vacuum pumps

Membrane
modules
Heat exchangers

Adsorption beds
Valves, recycling loops, mixers,
splitters

…/...
…/...

Methanol Project nov 2021

 To Do list 3 :
Process Architectures

Distributed feed
Reaction / Separation / Recycling loops

Intensified catalytic membrane reactor

Methanol Project nov 2021

 Global Target :
Process architecture optimisation

Constraints : Objective function :

Feed composition
Methanol purity Indicators
Yield
Conversion
Energy consumption
Cost

Design Robustness :
Sensitivity to
operating conditions

Methanol Project nov 2021

 Your weapons ...

+ UDF
PROSIM For kinetic

Methanol Project nov 2021