What impact will increasing the carbon dioxide content alone have on the system when synthesizing methanol in a single-step process?
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This post was last edited by 654262293 on 2011-9-16 17:33. Today I encountered a problem related to the process of producing methanol from coke oven gas: in the synthesis loop, increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide reduces the system pressure. I feel it’s not right. Although during the synthesis process, carbon dioxide can effectively suppress the formation of dimethyl ether and also increase the activity of copper-based catalysts, thereby extending their service life, the problem is that if there is too much carbon dioxide, it reduces the hydrogen-to-carbon ratio, which shouldn’t it increase the system pressure? I hope those who have experience in methanol synthesis can help explain it! It’s a challenge I set for myself; I still believe that my idea is correct – too much carbon dioxide will increase the system pressure
An increase in carbon dioxide and too high a water content in methanol lead to a decline in quality.
In the methanol production process using coke oven gas, the carbon content is low while the hydrogen content is high, resulting in a high hydrogen-to-carbon ratio. Therefore, increasing the CO2 content appropriately will raise the carbon content and reduce the hydrogen-to-carbon ratio, making it more favorable for the reaction that produces methanol; as a result, the system pressure will decrease.
Based on our operational experience, high carbon dioxide levels lead to increased system pressure
It depends on to what extent carbon dioxide levels are increased. A small increase can reduce the system pressure, as the production of methanol from carbon dioxide requires twice as much hydrogen as that needed for producing methanol from carbon monoxide, and it also generates one volume of water; this can be understood by looking at the reaction equations for these two substances. Therefore, the pressure decreases. However, if the level of carbon dioxide becomes too high, it will severely disrupt the equilibrium, resulting in an increase in system pressure