The type of methanol synthesis tower you are using

The adiabatic shell-and-tube synthesis tower at East China University of Science and Technology – I wonder how those in Casale are What can the net value of the exported alcohol be?

Shell-and-tube water-cooled type designed by the Second Chemical Engineering Institute

Our alcohol net value is around 6% on average, with a maximum of 8%

Two DN800 homogenizing units, with each having a production capacity of around 12,000 tons； One DN1200 isothermal model, with a production capacity of 30,000 tons

Brother upstairs, it should be Ф800 or Ф1200, not the nominal diameter. I’m not sure what type of tower it is; the production capacity of Ф800 seems to be relatively low. Is it a catalyst from Nanhua Institute? This post was last edited by BlueDot on 2009-2-4 23:42]

The adiabatic shell-and-tube synthesis tower from East China University of Science and Technology, and the uniform temperature tower from Hangzhou Linda – the former belongs to the previous company while the latter belongs to the current company

We are using a constant-temperature type synthesis tower from Hangzhou Linda, with the catalyst being Tianyi’s XNC-98; the unit has not yet started operating. The catalyst has been delivered but not yet installed.

We use Davy’s technology, an upward-type radial synthesis tower that is also of the shell-and-tube type; it is somewhat different from traditional designs, being of a coupled type.

Adiabatic shell-and-tube synthesis tower of East China University of Science and Technology-

We use a shell-and-tube synthesis tower designed by the Second Chemical Research Institute; the tubes are filled with C307 catalyst, and the annual production capacity is 100,000 tons!

Two axes and two diameters of the shock-type synthesis tower at Nanhua Institute

The Chengdu General’s spiral-tube, straight-tube composite series external-cooling type 200,000 tons/year synthesis tower features an external-cooling straight-tube shell design in the upper section, while the lower section uses a spiral-tube shell with external cooling.

The one in Casale is a plate-type synthesis tower. When a domestic catalyst was used, the initial alcohol concentration at the outlet was 13.9%.

The Luqi shell-and-tube externally cooled insulated composite fixed-bed catalytic reactor is used in China Coal Longhua Harbin

Ours uses British David’s technology: a radial synthesis tower with coupled twin towers.

The situation in our plant is as follows: Methanol synthesis tower: Structure: The basic structure consists mainly of an outer cylinder, internal components, and an electric heater. The outer cylinder consists of a large cover, a small cover, an outer cylinder, and a tee. The internal components consist of a catalyst basket, a cold tank, two distributors, and a heat exchanger. An electric heater consists of an electrode rod and an electric heating wire. Function: The methanol synthesis tower is the facility where the methanol synthesis reaction takes place; it is a key piece of equipment in the methanol production process. Its main function is to react CO, CO2, and H2 present in gases to produce methanol, thereby providing suitable gases for the hydrocarbonation stage, achieving gas purification while also generating methanol as a by-product. Parameters: Plant No. 1: Working pressure of the outer cylinder – 15.5 MPa; design temperature – 150°C; catalyst basket volume V = 14.3 m3 ； Design temperature 350℃ ； The heat exchange area of the lower heat exchanger is 146.5 M2 ； The design pressure difference for the internal components is ≤1.0 MPa. Second branch plant: Working pressure of the outer cylinder 15.0 MPa; design temperature 200°C. Catalyst baskets A: V = 25.6 M3, B: V = 26.4 M3 ； Design temperature 350℃ ； Heat exchange area of lower heat exchanger: A: F=190 M2, B: F=540 M2 ； The design pressure difference for the internal components is ≤1.0 MPa. H_net = 18,000 mm, G = 87.32.

Shell-and-tube synthesis towers have only two temperature measurement points, at the inlet and outlet; I consider them to be of a basic design, but they are suitable for companies that are just starting out in the methanol production business

The MRF (Multi-stage-indirect-cooling type Radial Flow) reactor is a multi-stage, indirectly cooled radial reactor jointly developed by the Japanese company Toyo and Mitsubishi Chemical. It consists of a housing, a catalyst bed, catalyst baskets, tube bundles, and a gas collection box. The reactor is equipped with an inner vessel of smaller diameter to alter the flow direction of the material. A tubular bundle with a casing is installed at its central axis to collect the gas after the reaction; the casing has pores with a diameter smaller than that of the catalyst particles. The collected reaction gas flows radially into these pores on the casing, while the high-temperature gas resulting from the reaction passes through inside the tubular bundle. The reactor also contains cooling tubes and catalyst supports, which are evenly arranged along the axis. The cooling tube bundle consists of double-layer concentric tubes; boiling water is introduced from the inner tube into the annular space between the tubes, where it absorbs the heat of reaction to generate high-pressure steam that drives the steam turbine. The catalyst is filled outside the cooling tube bundle and installed vertically within the catalyst bed, perpendicular to the horizontally radial-flowing syngas. The boiler feed water is introduced into the cooling tubes from the bottom of the furnace, and the steam generated collects in the steam chamber. The arrangement of the cooling tubes is a patent of the MRF reactor. It has a cylindrical shape with upper and lower end caps; the lower end cap is removable, which facilitates the removal of the central gas collection pipe to ease catalyst loading and maintenance of internal components. This reactor was applied in 1988 to the retrofit of a 1200 t/d methanol plant in Trinidad and Tobago. According to TEC, this unit can be scaled up from the current capacity of 2500–2800 t/d to 5000 t/d, and both Sichuan Vinylon Plant and Sichuan Luzhou Natural Gas Chemical Plant are using such reactors. Domestic plants use ICI51-7/8 catalysts; no new catalysts have been developed for MRF reactors yet. Based on operational data, production capacity has not been affected and it is generally possible to achieve the designed capacity. However, the impurity content is relatively high, and methamine as well as paraffins are formed. The cold tube is the core component of the MRF reactor, and Table 2 shows a comparison between the MRF reactor and conventional reactors. Table 2 Comparison between MRF-Z reactor and conventional reactor Item MRF-Z reactor Conventional reactor Relative volume of catalyst 0.68 1.00 Number of reactors 1 1 Total relative volume of reactors 1.25 1 Total number of tubes inside the reactor 950 n/a Relative heat exchange area 0.91 1.00 Natural gas consumption 0.93 1.00 Cost of natural gas and catalyst 0.92 1.00 The advantages of this reactor are: ① Radial gas flow, short flow channels, and low space velocity, resulting in low pressure drop, approximately 1/10 that of axial reactors ； ②The syngas flows vertically through the cooling tubes, resulting in high heat transfer efficiency between the bed and the cold tubes ； ③The one-way conversion rate is high, and the volume of recycled gas is low ； ④By reducing the pressure drop and the volume of gas circulated, the energy consumption of the synthesis cycle system decreased from 111.6 MJ/t in the quench reactor to 57.6 MJ/t. Its drawback is that the temperature of the catalyst bed is difficult to control; the catalysts located farther radially from the cooling tubes are prone to local overheating, resulting in the formation of paraffin, ammonia, methylamine, etc., and thus increasing the impurity content in crude methanol.