Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of Russian ...

OP-III-21obtained by the new technology has high purity; therefore, for a number of industries, this canbe either a marketable product, e.g., for the gas industry, or a raw material for producingdimethyl ether, ethylene, propylene, and motor fuels. For the highly purified methanolobtained, the number and volume of industrial distillation columns are much smaller, whichreduces the specific metal content of the process equipment and the energy consumption.Moreover, the absence of feed circulation in the methanol production by the new technologyresults in additional energy savings. This also increases the methanol production profitability.Last, since methanol is synthesized under mild operating conditions, the service life ofindustrial catalysts is also prolonged.The experimental data are processed by the nonlinear least squares method to estimate theconstants of all kinetic models. It is shown that all the models are in agreement with theexperimental data. The goodness of fit of the kinetic model of methanol synthesis to theexperimental data is tested by Bartlett’s criterion. This criterion is used for testing thehypothesis of equality of two variance–covariance matrices, one of which is calculated fromthe results of a replicate experiment and the other of which is computed from the residualvector calculated from the model constructed.The final step of modeling of a catalytic process is to calculate the designs of the reactorunit and its constituent individual reactors and to determine the operating conditions of thereactor unit under which a given output, feed conversion, and energy consumption areensured. A three-reactor methanol synthesis providing 75-80 % conversion of the synthesisgas feed is calculated. The crude methanol obtained has a high content of the desired productof 94-99 wt.%. The residual synthesis gas should have a calorific value no less than2400 kJ/m 3 so that it can be used to generate power sufficient for the process to be closed inenergy. Low-output methanol synthesis plants can be placed directly at gas production sitesfor providing immediate transport of the liquid products of gas processing from the north ofthe Russian Federation to its central regions and abroad.References:1. Plate, N.A. and Rozovskii, A.Ya., Problems and Prospects of the Production of Motor Fuels with Improved.Environmental Characteristics (Dimethyl Ether, Dimethyl Ether Gasoline, Pure Hydrogen) on the Basis ofNatural. Gas, Proc. of International Conference on Alternative Energy Sources for Transport and PowerEngineering in Big Cities, 2005, part I, p. 8.2. Rozovskii, A.Ya., Dimethyl Ether and Gasoline From Natural Gas, Ross. Khim. Zh., 2003, vol. 47, no. 6, p.53.3. P.J.A. Tijm, F.J. Waller, D.M. Brown. Methanol technology developments for the new millennium // ApplCatal A: Gen .2001.V.221. P.275.132