In MTO technology, is liquid methanol sprayed into the reactor at the bottom of the main reactor?

I don’t think so; there should be a methanol vaporizer in front of the reactor. Direct gas-phase feeding.

How can there be a liquid feed? Wouldn’t that have a significant impact on the catalyst’s performance? On the one hand, a poor atomization effect leads to a **reduced contact area with the catalyst; on the other hand, a low feed temperature can easily cause thermal degradation of the catalyst, resulting in a decrease in its activity. Methanol gasification feed not only effectively addresses these issues, but also enables the effective utilization of the plant’s waste heat, resulting in lower energy consumption.

You can give it a try. If the atomization is good, spraying methanol directly into the reactor should be beneficial; the reactor will not need to be cooled, as the heat generated by the reaction can be used to vaporize the methanol for the reaction to take place.

Should we consider it from a catalytic perspective? Currently, MTO reactors all operate in a bed-type configuration; if they were to be vertical reactor types, it might be as you mentioned. However, based on the current design of MTO reactors, this approach does not seem feasible. Firstly, the reaction zone in such vertical reactors would need to be very short, located as close as possible to the settler, but the issue of heat generation remains a problem. The catalyst contact area is also an issue; the thermal degradation of the catalyst mentioned above is another problem, but I don’t think it will be a problem with mud.

Firstly, the location where methanol is sprayed is crucial. The density in the dense phase region is high, and due to the obstruction posed by the catalyst, it is difficult for liquid methanol to disperse effectively over a large area; this is the direct reason why methanol accumulates mainly near the nozzle. Since methanol cannot disperse properly in the dense phase region, the methanol that accumulates near the nozzle, if not vaporized in time, will cause the reaction to stop until sludge forms. The technique of spraying methanol again may not be suitable for MTO reactors with a single-bed configuration. To effectively disperse the methanol and vaporize it promptly, a more favorable location is the dilute-phase region of the lower bed in a two-bed system, as this meets the aforementioned requirements better; moreover, the methanol is preheated to the reaction temperature there before reacting in the upper bed. The advantage is that no vaporization or superheating equipment is required, reducing the heat removed from the bed.