Embedding methane steam reformer and methanol reactor into a single reactor

Non-incremental reductions in process plant size, cost reduction, safety, environment, and energy are some of the major objectives that currently drive the process industry towards intensifying the existing and future installations. In the present study, direct coupling of methane steam reformer and methanol reactor has been proposed. The synthesis gas produced in reformer was directly fed to methanol reactor skipping secondary reformer and shift convertors. A heterogeneous steam reformer model was developed and embedded with heterogeneous methanol reactor model. The set of differential algebraic equations was solved in MATLAB. Steady state and dynamic simulation results were validated against real plant data. The results showed gradual increase in the methanol mole fraction along the reactor length with a simultaneous decrease in CO and CO2 levels. Although, the methanol yield achieved through this new reactor scheme remained unchanged, but the reduction in number of equipment and heat integration may help lower operational and capital cost and overall energy demand of the plant