Methanol synthesis produces a small amount of paraffin; how can its accumulation due to condensation in the water cooler be prevented?

In the water cooler, the process gas generally flows through the tube side, and the material used for the tube side is usually 304 stainless steel.

Effective measures: 1) Use hot water with a temperature slightly above the melting point of the wax as the cooling medium, to prevent wax from depositing and forming a film on the inner wall of the heat exchange tubes； 2) The installation of segmented spring heat transfer enhancement and automatic descaling elements inside the heat exchange tubes of the cooler will definitely yield excellent results.

How can segmented spring heat transfer enhancement and automatic descaling elements be installed inside the heat exchange tubes of a cooler?

The paraffin content is very low; there is only a small amount of wax in 120 m3/h of crude methanol.

The separator installed at the inlet of the cycle hydrogen compressor in a petrochemical company’s paraffin hydrogenation unit is frequently clogged by paraffin carried by the cycle hydrogen, forcing shutdowns almost every month to clean and replace the internal components of this separator. In almost every paraffin hydrogenation unit, the separator located at the inlet of the cycle hydrogen compressor suffers from paraffin blockage, which affects the normal operation of the production facility.

The recycled hydrogen gas coming out of the reactor in the paraffin hydrorefining unit first passes through a cooler to be cooled, during which some of the high-carbon paraffins condense into a liquid or even solid state. The conventional inlet separator, located in the inlet pipeline of the recycle hydrogen compressor and responsible for separating and purifying the recycle hydrogen, uses, in terms of its structure, the most traditional and simple screen-type separator. The fatal drawback of this traditional design in terms of recycle hydrogen separation in this paraffin hydrogenation plant is its tendency to clog, which leads to a decrease in separation efficiency ； In terms of its quantity configuration, since this type of separator is used for dewaxing and tends to get clogged, requiring frequent maintenance and replacement of its internal components, it is essential to have one in operation and one as a backup. Yet, the process flow is designed with only one unit, and this configuration inevitably leads to production shutdowns due to the frequent clogging of the inlet separator, which requires maintenance and replacement.

In layman’s terms, it means separating those caused by design flaws

Coal chemical processing definitely results in the formation of paraffin. Just perform regular wax removal

The formation of paraffin using copper-based catalysts in coal-to-methanol production is inevitable; the amount of paraffin produced depends on the composition of the reaction gases. To reduce its amount, one should first adjust the composition of the reaction gases and the reaction temperature. Additionally, paraffin in the water coolers certainly affects the heat exchange efficiency, so regular online dewaxing is necessary.