How to address liquid carryover in the MTO gas-phase methanol feed
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This post was last edited by lzy4225925 on 2015-12-16 at 16:31. It is said that liquid in the MTO gaseous methanol feed can cause the reactor to malfunction or stop operating. This liquid tends to accumulate in the lower part of the U-shaped section of the feed pipeline. So, what methods can be used to get rid of this liquid?
Add it to the lower part? Is it actually used?
Accumulation of fluid in the U-tube is usually caused by insufficient insulation, and this issue can be resolved by adding heating. Also, I’m not very familiar with the MTO process specifically – shouldn’t the methanol vapor fed into it be superheated? Is it saturated?
The feed is gasified methanol; crude methanol contains a certain amount of water, which can cause liquid accumulation at the U-tube section
Generally, the methanol fed into the system is vaporized, and then a superheater is used to heat it further in order to ensure a certain degree of superheat. From what I’ve seen of the DMTO process, superheating is also required; however, it seems that liquid methanol is mixed with the superheated methanol in order to control the degree of superheat. I’m not sure what your process flow is; it would be best to check whether there is any impact on the superheat of the methanol vapor fed into the system
After passing through the methanol steam heat exchanger, methanol flows through the U-tube section, then goes through the large heat exchanger, and finally enters the reactor directly, without going through a superheater
By ‘Dali exchange’ you are referring to the heat exchange between the reaction gas and methanol vapor, right? That’s the superheater; there must be some issues with your piping or equipment layout At least allow the condensed liquid to flow back to the methanol-vapor heat exchanger by gravity. For now, it seems necessary to use steam for heating, but the temperature and pressure of this heating steam cannot be too low; otherwise, it won’t be effective.
Yes, but how can the condensed liquid flow back to the methanol vapor heat exchanger on its own?
Those are the things to keep in mind when arranging the equipment and installing the piping. . You can go and check the layout of your pipes on site to see if there are any opportunities for optimization.