Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

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Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

Modeling and analysis of a methanol synthesis process using a mixed

reforming reactor: Perspective on methanol production and CO2
utilization
Nonam Park a,b, Myung-June Park a,b,, Kyoung-Su Ha c,1, Yun-Jo Lee c, Ki-Won Jun c,
a
b
c

Department of Chemical Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon 443-749, Republic of Korea

Department of Energy Systems Research, Ajou University, Suwon 443-749, Republic of Korea
Research Center for Green Catalysis, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), Daejeon 305-600, Republic of Korea

h i g h l i g h t s
 A methanol synthesis process using a mixed reforming reactor was modeled.
 Kinetic models for the mixed reforming and methanol synthesis were developed.
 Various effects of operating conditions on the MeOH production rate were evaluated.
 An analysis was conducted with respect to both the overall and local CO2 conversions.
 A trade-off existed between the maximum MeOH production and the maximum CO2 utilization.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 22 January 2014
Received in revised form 21 March 2014
Accepted 30 March 2014
Available online 13 April 2014
Keywords:
Mixed reforming of methane
Methanol synthesis
Kinetic model
Reactor sizing
CO2 utilization

a b s t r a c t
In this study, kinetic models were developed for the mixed reforming and synthesis of methanol (MeOH).
The effectiveness of the reforming model in our previous work was proven in an experimental study
using a bench-scale reactor, while the intrinsic rate model and effectiveness factors were developed to
represent the MeOH synthesis. For a 10-ton-per-day production of MeOH, the rate model was used to
determine the size of a reforming reactor so that the supplied heat could be used exclusively to engage
the reaction (not for the heat-up of the reactant), while the MeOH reactor was specied using the
reported values. The process model was then used to evaluate various effects of the following factors
on the MeOH production rate: (1) reaction temperature, (2) CO2 fraction in the feed, and (3) the recycle
route of the unreacted gas either to the feed or to the MeOH reactor. Additionally, an analysis was conducted with respect to both the overall and local CO2 conversions in each reactor, and it was shown that a
trade-off existed between the maximum MeOH production rate and the maximum CO2 utilization,
regardless of the existence of a recycle stream.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Methanol (MeOH) can be either used as a solvent and fuel by
itself or conveniently converted into useful products such as formaldehyde, amines, acetic acid, esters, and olens [1]. MeOH is considered as an excellent alternative energy resource since its high
Corresponding authors. Address: Department of Chemical Engineering, Ajou
University, Suwon 443-749, Republic of Korea. Tel.: +82 (31) 219 2383; fax: +82
(31) 219 1612 (M.-J. Park). Tel.: +82 (42) 860 7671; fax: +82 (42) 860 7388 (K.-W.
Jun).
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M.-J. Park), [email protected] (K.-W. Jun).
1
Present address: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Sogang
University, Seoul 121-742, Republic of Korea.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2014.03.068
0016-2361/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

octane number ensures good antiknock performance, in addition

to high volatility, denser fuelair charge and excellent lean burn
properties [2]. In addition, it can be blended with gasoline,
although it has half the volumetric energy density relative to gasoline or diesel [1]. Besides its direct use as fuel, methanol can be
conveniently converted into ethylene or propylene in the MTO
(methanol-to-olens) process, and in turn, these olens can be
used to produce hydrocarbon fuels and their products [3]. Methanol is also used for supercritical treatment in the biodiesel fuel production [46], and is applied to the fuel cell system [7].
It is also a convenient medium for the storage and transport of
CO and H2 [8,9]. Recently, because of the increased interest in
atmospheric pollution caused by the emission of signicant

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N. Park et al. / Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

amounts of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2 [10], much attention has been focused on the development of processes for CO2 utilization including MeOH synthesis by means of both CO and CO2
hydrogenation [1115]. In addition, if a MeOH production process
is combined with the mixed (steam and CO2) reforming of methane
to produce syngas for MeOH synthesis, synergetic effects of CO2
utilization are expected [16,17].
Much research work has been reported in the literature for the
modeling and optimization of methanol synthesis processes.
Holmgren et al. analyzed the energy balance of a commercial-scale
MeOH process featuring a biomass gasication system [18]; in
addition, the dynamic behavior and control of methanol synthesis
xed-bed reactors have been studied by many researchers [19,20].
Furthermore, the development of the methanol synthesis recycleloop model has been described in detail, along with several case
studies performed using steady-state and dynamic models for better understanding of the process behavior [21]. In addition to modeling and analysis, optimization methods have been extensively
applied to the two processes including a genetic algorithm to
obtain an optimal temperature prole and optimal two-stage cooling shell for the maximum production rate [22], and a repeated
process estimationoptimization strategy has been applied to
track the theoretical optimum prole of the selected control variable with the deactivation of the catalyst [23]. Optimal values of
the inlet hydrogen mole fraction and the shell temperature have
been investigated by employing methanol production rate as an
objective function [24]; moreover, Luyben developed the economically optimum design of a methanol reactor and distillation column system to produce high-purity methanol from synthesis gas
[25]. The syngas inlet temperature, steam drum pressure, and cooling water volumetric ow rate were optimized to maximize the
methanol production in the reactor outlet [26]; Santangelo et al.
presented an optimization procedure for increasing the methanol
production in synthesis loops with quench reactors [27].
Recently, much effort has been directed to the reduction of CO2
emissions to alleviate environmental phenomena such as global
warming. In this sense, our previous work [17] reported the effects
of operating conditions on the production rate of syngas and CO2
conversion (utilization) for the mixed (steam + dry(CO2)) reforming,
where it was shown that a trade-off existed between the maximum
syngas production and maximum CO2 utilization. Based on these
results, the mixed reforming reactor was incorporated into a MeOH
synthesis process in the present work; here, the feed gas composed
of CH4, H2O, and CO2 was converted to syngas (CO + H2 + CO2) by a
mixed reforming process, and the syngas was further converted to
methanol by the hydrogenation of both CO and CO2. This process
includes both the consumption and production of CO2, its consumption by dry reforming (CH4 + CO2 2CO + 2H2), and CO2 hydrogenation to synthesize MeOH (CO2 + 3H2 CH3OH + H2O) vs.
production by either steam reforming (CH4 + 2H2O CO2 + 4H2)
or the water gas shift reaction (CO + H2O CO2 + H2 (WGS)). Therefore, both an investigation of the effect of operating conditions on
MeOH production and an analysis of the accompanying CO2 emission were performed in this work.

2. Experimental
2.1. Bench-scale reforming reaction
The catalyst was prepared by a co-impregnation method
using metal precursors of Ni(NO3)26H2O (98% , Samchun) and
Ce(CH3COO)3xH2O (99.9%, Aldrich) with an aqueous solution.
The weight ratio of Ni/Ce/support (Sasol Pural MG30 with a weight
ratio of MgO/Al2O3 = 3/7) was xed at 15/6/79 based on the metallic composition of Ni and Ce. The prepared catalyst was dried

overnight at 393 K and pelletized in the form of a cuboid with four

holes. Then, it was subsequently calcined at 1123 K for 6 h in air.
Thereafter, the catalyst cuboid was crushed in a mortar, and then
sieved to collect the nal catalyst pellets of ca. 5 mm in size.
The prepared catalyst pellets were charged to a tubular reactor
that had an outer diameter of 42.7 mm and an inner diameter of
32.5 mm. The amount of catalyst pellets was 40 g, and 1220 g of
a-Al2O3 balls of ca. 5 mm in diameter was additionally mixed well
with the catalyst pellets as a diluent material in the catalyst bed.
After inert a-Al2O3 balls were charged to a height of 80 mm for preheating, the height of the catalyst bed was ca. 745 mm. The wall temperature was measured at three points, which were regularly
positioned as shown in Fig. 1. Prior to the activity test, the catalyst
was pre-reduced at 1023 K for 3 h under a ow of 5 vol% H2 balanced
with N2. The gas-hourly-space-velocity (GHSV) was 25,000 mL-CH4/
(gcat h), and the pressure was 0.53 MPa. The tube wall temperature
was maintained at 1201 K by operating three jacket-type electric furnaces that surrounded the tube in a series. The feed molar ratio was
specied as CH4/H2O/CO2/N2/H2 = 4.07/6.37/1.75/1.00/1.07. The
product gases were analyzed using an online gas chromatography
unit (Younglin ACME 6100) equipped with a thermal conductivity
detector connected to a Porapak-Q packed column for CO2 and a
molecular sieve 5A packed column for H2, N2, CO, and CH4.
2.2. MeOH synthesis
A commercial catalyst (Cu/ZnO/Al2O3, Sd-Chemie, MegaMax
700) was used for the kinetic experiment on the synthesis of
MeOH. The pelletized catalyst (5 mm diameter, 3 mm height)
was broken and sieved to produce three samples of uniform size:
0.150.25 mm, 0.750.85 mm, and 1.52.5 mm that were labeled
as S1, S2, and S3, respectively. Additionally, the original catalyst
pellet, denoted as S4, was also used without breaking and sieving
it. The S1 catalyst was used for the kinetic investigation, while
the other catalyst samples were used to evaluate the effect of particle size on the catalytic performance.
The kinetic data were collected using a continuous tubular-ow
xed-bed microreactor. The temperature within the reactor was
controlled by adjusting the furnace temperature, and the ow rate
was controlled using a mass ow controller. The pressure was precisely controlled by a back pressure regulator and monitored by a
digital pressure sensor. The catalyst samples (0.4 g) were diluted
with similar-sized and inert a-Al2O3 particles (1.2 g) and packed
together into a stainless steel reactor (internal diameter = 7 mm).
The catalyst was reduced under a ow of H2 (100 mL/min), and
the temperature was increased from room temperature to a predetermined point at a rate of 2 K/min and held constant for 3 h. After
the reduction, the pressure was increased according to the operating conditions, and the H2 gas was then replaced by the gas used in
the synthesis of MeOH. The detailed conditions of temperature,
pressure, and feed gas composition are listed in Table S1 in
Supplementary data. The reaction products were analyzed using
an on-line gas chromatograph (Young Lin), where a Carboxen
1000 column was installed to separate the CO, CO2, H2, and Ar
gases that were detected with the thermal conductivity detector,
and a HP-PLOT Q capillary column coupled to a ame ionization
detector was used to separate and analyze all the hydrocarbons,
including MeOH.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Reaction rates
The reaction rates for the mixed reforming process over the pellet-type catalysts in this work were reported in our previous work

165

N. Park et al. / Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

exp
sim

Values

3
2
1
0

Temperature [K]

1500
Catalytic bed

Wall

1300
1100
900
700
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

Packing depth [m]

Fig. 1. (a) Scheme of a pilot-scale reforming reactor (tube I.D. = 3.25 cm, tube O.D. = 4.27 cm). Catalyst/inert weights are 0.00/0.14 kg, 0.04/1.22 kg (the ratio of inert to
catalyst = 30.5), and 0.00/0.52 kg for Bed 1, 2, and 3, respectively, and the solid circles represent the location of the temperature detectors. (b) Comparison between
experimental and simulation data: conversion = CH4 conversion, H2 fraction = H2/(2CO + 3CO2), and CO fraction = CO/(CO + CO2) at the exit of the reactor. Relative residuals
are shown above each bar, and the mean of absolute relative residuals (MARR) was determined to be 11.89 %. (c) Temperature prole in the catalyst bed when the feed and
wall temperatures are 973 and 1201 K, respectively.

[17]. To prove that the rates are representative of the reaction in

large-scale reactors, the experiment was conducted using a tube
larger than that used in the lab-scale experiments for kinetic study.
Fig. 1a shows a schematic diagram of the reactor (detailed operating conditions are provided in Section 2.1 and the gure caption),
and the simulation results are compared to experimental data in
Fig. 1b. As shown in Fig. 1c, the temperature decreases abruptly
at Bed 2 (0.08 m) although the fraction of catalyst is very low
(inert/catalyst = 30.5), and remains below the wall temperature
due to high reaction endothermicity. The CH4 conversion at the
exit was calculated to be 73.24% (experimental conversion = 61.48%), and the values of H2/CO ratio, H2 fraction (dened
as H2/(2CO + 3CO2)), and CO fraction (dened as CO/(CO + CO2))
were 3.18, 0.89, and 0.66, respectively (the corresponding experimental observations were 2.77, 0.79, and 0.67, respectively). The
mean of the absolute relative residuals was 11.89%, indicating that
the reaction rates in the previous work can be used for large scale
reactors without alteration (see [17] for detailed reaction rates and
kinetic parameters).
For the reaction rates of the MeOH synthesis, experiments were
conducted using powder-type catalysts to generate the kinetic
data. Experimental values for temperature, pressure, space velocity, CO fraction, and H2 fraction were varied within the ranges
523613 K, 59 MPa, 800040,000 mL/(gcat h), 01, and 1.02.5,
respectively, and the total number of experimental runs was 118
(see Table S1 in Supplementary data for detailed experimental conditions). To obtain the reaction rates for MeOH synthesis, the
kinetic mechanism in the literature [11] was modied to represent
the adsorption of CO and CO2 on two different active sites (Cu1+
and Cu0 for CO and CO2, respectively) [12,13,28,29] while the
assumption about the rate-determining step was maintained (see
Table 1 for detailed reaction rates).
The kinetic parameters were estimated by tting experimental
data for 74 conditions (out of 118 total conditions) that deviated
from the equilibrium conversions by more than 15% (the conditions marked with solid circles in Table S1 in Supplementary data),

and the estimation results are listed in Table 1. Since parameters

estimation, especially in chemical kinetics, is very often related
to strong multi-collinearity issues, and thus, the robustness of
the selected procedure should be considered to prevent parameter
estimates from signicantly changing [3032]. Therefore, in the
present study, several initial values for the nonlinear regression
including the reported values of kinetic parameters in the literature were considered to nd the globally optimal estimates.
As shown in the comparison between experimental and simulation results (Fig. 2a), the model performs satisfactorily for CO conversion, while the mean of the absolute relative residuals (MARR)
value for the CO2 conversion was higher than that of the CO conversion. This result was attributed to the fact that the experimental
values for the CO2 conversion under the same conditions were
close to zero, and thus the relative errors were calculated to be
very large because of the very small denominator values. Additionally, when water and methanol in the reactor efuent were trapped
to prevent them from entering the GC column, a small amount of
CO2 might have remained dissolved in the liquid phase, resulting
in increased measurement errors. It was difcult to directly measure dissolved CO2 in a blank test because a minimal amount of
CO2 was dissolved in the liquid phase compared with that in the
gas phase (Nevertheless, there was a sufcient amount of CO2 to
affect the measurement errors of the CO2 conversions). Thus,
instead, we calculated the weight fractions of CO2 in the liquid
phase using a process simulator to determine the amount of CO2
that could be dissolved in the liquid phase because of condensation. The values ranged from 0.14 wt% to 6.7 wt% under all operating conditions, indicating that the amount of dissolved CO2 varied
signicantly with respect to the experimental conditions, which
resulted in high individual errors in some cases.
The catalysts should be transformed into pellets to prevent an
abrupt drop in pressure when using large-scale reactors. In such
cases, the catalytic performance would deteriorate because of
internal diffusion limitation, and accordingly, additional experiments were conducted using different mean particle sizes to

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N. Park et al. / Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

Table 1
Reaction rates of MeOH synthesis and kinetic parameters estimated in this work.a
Rate equationsb

Reaction

Units

CO hydrogenation

mol/(kgcat h)

1:5 f
0:5
kA K CO fCO fH2
CH3OH =K P;A fH2 

rCO 1K

0:5
1K 0:5
H2 fH2 K H2O fH2O

CO fCO
0

Water gas shift reaction

kB K CO2 fCO2 fH2 fCO fH2O =K P;B 

rWGS  1K

CO2 hydrogenation

r CO2

DME production

0:5
1K 0:5
H2 fH2 K H2O fH2O

CO2 fCO2

1:5 f
1:5
k0C K CO2 fCO2 fH2
H2O fCH3OH =K P;C fH2 
0:5
1K CO2 fCO2 1K 0:5
H2 fH2 K H2O fH2O

kDME K 2CH3OH C 2CH3OH C H2O C DME =K P;DME 

r DME 

Kinetic parameters

12

K CH3OH C CH3OH K H2O;DME C H2O

4

Estimated

kA

2:14  10 exp

kB

Units


mol/(kgcat h Pa1.5)

mol/(kgcat h Pa)

114;000
RT

4:18  108 exp 127;000

RT


8:06 exp 68;000
RT


3:07  1013 exp 124;000
RT


3:80  1015 exp 81;000
RT

0
kC

kDME
KH2O

mol/(kgcat h Pa1.5)
mol/(kgcat h)
Pa1

Other kinetic parameters were available in the literature and used without alteration [11,28,36].
Units of fugacity (fi) and concentration (Ci) are Pa and mol/m3, respectively. k, Ki, and KP,j are the reaction rate constant, adsorption equilibrium constant of species i, and
equilibrium constant of reaction j, respectively. R is the gas constant (8.314 J/(mol K)).
b

CO conversion
CO2 conversion

80

Simulation results

the particle radius increased 25-fold (0.12.5 mm). Therefore, in

a large-scale MeOH reactor, the value of the effectiveness factor
was specied as 0.5.

100

60
40

3.2. Reactor sizing

20
0
-20
-40
-40

-20

20

40

60

80

100

Effectiveness factor

Experimental data
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7

exp (523 K)
exp (533 K)
regression (523 K)
regression (533 K)

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

Particle radius [mm]

Fig. 2. (a) Parity plots of CO (triangle) and CO2 (square) conversion between
experimental and simulated data. The values of mean of absolute relative residuals
(MARR) for CO and CO2 conversions were 9.40% and 72.12%, respectively. (b) The
effectiveness factor was calculated using experimental data and regressed lines;
y = 1.019 exp(262.2x) for 523 K (R2 = 0.9552) and y = 1.034 exp(250.4x) for 533 K
(R2 = 0.9692).

evaluate the effects of mean particle size on the production rates.

Based on the experimental data using catalysts in the group of
S2S4 (see the Experimental section for detailed particle sizes
and Table S2 in Supplementary data for experimental values of
CO conversion), the effectiveness factors for each particle size were
calculated [33] and regressed using an exponent under the
assumption that the factors approach zero as particle size
increases. As shown in Fig. 2b, the effectiveness factors were
slightly inuenced by temperature, but substantially decreased
as the particle radius increased, and they decreased to half when

A schematic of the MeOH synthesis process combined with the

mixed reformer is provided in Fig. 3a, along with chemical species
and overall reactions occurring in each reactor. In the industrial
data [26], the reactor tube diameter and the length for MeOH synthesis reactor were specied as 0.04 m and 7 m, respectively, and
the MeOH production rate from 1620 tubes was 11,283 kgMeOH/h (270 ton-per-day (TPD)). Therefore, the same size was
assumed for a tube while the number of tubes was reduced to 60
at a production rate of 10 TPD in this work. When the operating
conditions were assumed to be a feed composition of CO/CO2/
H2 = 13.9/13.1/73.0 (CO fraction  0.5, H2 fraction  1.1), a pressure of 5 MPa, a reactor inlet temperature of 520 K, and a wall temperature of 483 K, the simulation of the MeOH reactor showed that
136 kmol/h of inlet ow comprising CO, CO2, and H2 is required
to achieve an MeOH production rate of 10 TPD. Therefore, these
conditions were specied as the reaction requirements. Notably,
the CO fraction was assumed as 0.5 for simulating similar contributions from CO and CO2 hydrogenation to the overall amount of
MeOH synthesized. Since the temperature hot spot is a well-known
key parameter in the MeOH synthesis, temperature prole in the
reactor (graph not shown) was checked and the increase of ca.
10 K was observed at the location of approximately 1 m from the
reactor inlet.
It is worth noting that, the kinetic model in the present study
was based on the fresh (not aged) catalyst and the effectiveness
factor was considered for the effects of particle size, since the operation duration of our pilot plant is limited. In the preliminary data,
the deactivation of reforming catalyst was not observed, while
detailed information about the deactivation of MeOH synthesis
catalyst is not yet available. Therefore, the approach in the present
study was applied to the process with fresh catalyst, and the deactivation was considered beyond the scope of the present study.
However, further research is ongoing for the deactivation of MeOH
synthesis catalyst through a long-term test, and the current
approach will be applied to the design of a larger-scale

N. Park et al. / Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

167

Fig. 3. (a) Schematic of the MeOH synthesis process combined with the mixed reformer and the process ow diagram of the MeOH synthesis plant (b) without and (c) with
recycle in this work (recycle to the feed: red colored line, recycle to the MeOH inlet: green colored line). (For interpretation of the references to color in this gure legend, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

(demo- or commercial-scale process) process with the deactivation

included for longer operation time.
It is also notable that, the radial temperature gradients were
assumed to be negligible on the basis of our recent work [34],
where small temperature differences in the radial direction were
observed for the tubular reactor with similar reactor specication
in the present study with the FischerTropsch synthesis (FTS) reaction (its heat generation per unit volume was higher than MeOH
reactor, due to higher exothermicity); Heat generation per unit volume in the FTS reactor [34] was 4.03  105 W/m3 at 540 K with the
ratio of tube length (L) to diameter (I.D.) = 100 (L = 5 m,
I.D. = 0.05 m) and overall heat transfer coefcient = 148 W/(m2 K),
while 1.08  104 W/m3 was generated at 480 K for the MeOH reactor in the present study (L/D ratio = 175 (L = 7 m, I.D. = 0.04 m),
overall heat transfer coefcient = 140 W/(m2 K)).
In addition, the pre-heating temperature was specied to the
feed temperature (1123 K) although metal dusting would prevent
using any metallic heat-exchanger for the temperature. There are
attempts to build specially designed feed-efuent heat-exchanger

for the reformer with catalytically active surfaces or sulphur

(which is removed before the next reactor) included.
The equilibrium of the mixed reforming reaction was calculated
for various feed compositions and reaction temperatures. This was
done to help determine an appropriate size of the reformer and the
optimal operating conditions for producing a gas mixture of
(CO + CO2 + H2) with CO fraction and H2 fraction close to 0.5 and
1.1, respectively, at a rate of 136 kmol/h. The calculation was conducted using the Equilibrium Reactor unit module in a process
simulator (UniSim Design Suite, Honeywell Inc.), and it was found
that the feed ow rate of 125 kmol/h with a composition of CH4/
CO2/H2O = 28/6/66, feed temperature = 1123 K, and a heat supply
of 7 GJ/h resulted in the production of (CO + CO2 + H2) at a rate of
135.6 kmol/h with a CO fraction of 0.7 and a H2 fraction of 1.12.
Then, the detailed size of a tube for the reformer was determined
so that the supplied heat was used exclusively by the reaction
and not to heat the reactor efuent. Because the reforming reaction
easily achieves equilibrium, even at substantially large space
velocities, the contribution of axial convection was assumed to

168

N. Park et al. / Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

Fig. 4. Effects of tube diameter and length on (a) methane conversion, (b) temperature at the reformer exit (dashed line = threshold value of 1124 K), (c) L to D ratio (dashed
line = threshold value of 100), and (d) CO fraction (=CO/(CO + CO2)). Operating conditions: number of tubes = 3, pressure = 1.0 MPa, feed temperature = 1123 K, heating
rate = 7.0 GJ/h, feed ow rate = 125 kmol/h (2364.82 kg/h), and a molar feed composition of CH4/H2O/CO2 = 28/66/6.

be much larger than that of dispersion; therefore, the diameter of

the tube was specied to be larger than that of the MeOH synthesis
reactor (0.04 m). The simulations were conducted for a plug ow
reactor with reaction rates obtained in our previous work [17]
for various tube diameters and lengths by using the Plug Flow
Reactor unit module in the UniSim Design Suite (Honeywell

Inc.), while the number of tubes was xed to be three. As shown

in Fig. 4, when the reactor length was short, the space velocity
was relatively high, resulting in the conversion far from the equilibrium (Fig. 4a). Additionally, because the supplied heat was partially used for the reaction, the remaining heat increased the
amount of reactor efuent (Fig. 4b), indicating that the tube

Table 2
Reactor specication, reference operating conditions, and stream information.
Reformer

MeOH reactor
4
7
60

Reactor sizing & operating conditions

Diameter [cm]
Length [m]
Number of tubes
Heat supplied [GJ/h]
Wall temperature [K]

10.2
10
3
7

Local conversion [%]

CH4
CO2
CO

89.55
46.16

483.2
11.63
39.56

Stream namea

a
b

Feed

Reformer efuent

MeOH inlet

MeOH outlet

Separator liquid out

Molar ow [kmol/h]

H2O
CH4
CO2
CO
H2
MeOH
DME
Sum

83
35
7.0

48.4
3.66
10.2
28.1
97.3

0.46
3.66
10.2
28.1
97.3

125.00

187.7

139.7

1.68
3.66
9.03
17.0
71.5
12.2
0.03
115.1

1.68
1.41E02
0.36
0.02
4.08E02
11.9
5.90E03
14.0

Mass ow [kg/h]

H2O
CH4
CO2
CO
H2
MeOH
DME
Sum
Temperature [K]
Pressure [MPa]

1495
561.5
308.1

872.4
58.7
450.3
787.5
196.1

8.32
58.7
449.6
787.5
196.1

2365
1123
1

2365
1124
5

1500
519
5

30.3
58.7
397.3
476.0
144.1
392.3
1.47
1500
506
5

30.2
0.23
15.8
0.44
8.22E02
380.7b
0.27
428
298
5

Red-colored streams in Fig. 3b.

380.7 kg-MeOH/h = 9.14 TPD.

169

N. Park et al. / Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

b
9.4
9.2
9.0
8.8
8.6
8.4
8.2

Re 1120
tem form
pe er i 1080
rat nle
1040
ure t
[K]

480

470

-10
-20
-30
-40
-50

460

Re 1120
tem form 1080
pe er i
rat nle 1040
ure t
[K]

e
ratur ]
500
mpe
et te actor [K
k
c
a
J
re
eOH
of M
490

c
Local CO2 conversion
at the reformer exit [%]

Overall
CO2 conversion [%]

9.6

490

480

470

ture
pera
t tem ctor [K]
e
k
c
Ja
rea
eOH
of M

500

-30
-35
-40
-45
-50
-55
-60

Re 1120
tem form
pe er i 1080
rat nle 1040
ure t
[K]

480

470

460

ture
500
pera
t tem ctor [K]
e
k
c
Ja
rea
eOH
of M
490

Local CO2 conversion at the

MeOH reactor exit [%]

MeOH productivity
[ton/day]

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1160

1120
Re
tem form
1080
pe er i
rat nle
ure t
[ K]

1040

490

480

470

re
eratu
temp tor [K]
t
e
k
Jac OH reac
e
of M

500

Fig. 5. Effects of reformer inlet temperature and jacket temperature of MeOH reactor on (a) MeOH productivity, (b) overall CO2 conversion [%], dened as ((CO2,feed  CO2,MeOH
 100, (c) local CO2 conversion at the reformer exit [%], dened as ((CO2,feed  CO2,reformer exit)/CO2,feed)  100, and (d) local CO2 conversion at the MeOH reactor
exit [%], dened as ((CO2,MeOH in  CO2,MeOH exit)/CO2,MeOH in)  100. Operating conditions: pressure = 1.0 MPa, and a molar feed composition of CH4/H2O/CO2 = 28/66/6.

exit)/CO2,feed)

Fig. 6. Effects of CO2 fraction (=CO2/(CO2 + H2O)) in the feed on (a) CO2 conversion [%], (b) H2 fraction (=H2/(2CO + 3CO2)) at the reformer exit, (c) CO conversion at MeOH
reactor [%], and (d) MeOH productivity. Operating conditions: pressure = 1.0 MPa, reformer inlet temperature = 1123 K, and jacket temperature = 483 K in the MeOH reactor.
Feed ow rates of methane and (H2O + CO2) are 35 and 90 kmol/h, respectively.

diameter needs to be bigger than 10.16 cm (4 in). If the length-todiameter ratio (L/D) is assumed to be close to 100, which is a usual
value in industrial reformers for the ammonia synthesis process
[35], the diameter of the tube is 10.16 cm, and its length is 10 m

(L/D ratio = 98.4) in this work. As shown in Fig. 4d, the CO fraction
was higher than 0.7 for all the specications; thus, the condition
CO fraction = 0.5 could not be satised. Finally, the respective sizes
and operating conditions of the reformer and the MeOH synthesis

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N. Park et al. / Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

Fig. 7. Effects of recycle fraction (=recycle/(recycle + purge)) on (a) MeOH productivity, (b) CO conversion at MeOH reactor [%], (c) CO2 conversion [%], and (d) the net heat
supplied to the plant divided by the MeOH productivity [GJ/kmol] for the two separate cases of recycle to the feed (left column) and recycle to the MeOH reactor inlet (right
column).

reactor were applied to the process simulator without recycle

(Fig. 3b), and the resulting stream information is provided in
Table 2.
3.3. Effects of operating conditions
The change of the MeOH productivity with respect to the
reforming and the MeOH synthesis temperatures is shown in
Fig. 5a, where the MeOH productivity increased with increasing
reforming temperature because a high reforming temperature
caused a high production rate of syngas for both kinetic and thermodynamic reasons. In the case of the MeOH synthesis, when the
temperature was low, the reaction was dependent on the reaction
rate because it was far from the equilibrium (in other words, the
MeOH production rate in the kinetic-dependent domain increased
with the increase of temperature). Meanwhile, when the temperature increased further, the equilibrium began to affect the conversion (in other words, the reaction now occurred in a

thermodynamic-dependent domain), and the reaction rate

decreased with increasing temperature because of the exothermicity of the reaction. As for the CO2 consumption, the increase of the
reforming temperature resulted in an increase in the overall CO2
conversion (Fig. 5b), dened as ((CO2,feed  CO2,MeOH exit)/CO2,feed)
 100, mostly due to the reduced production of CO2 in the reformer
(Fig. 5c). The CO2 conversion in the MeOH reactor was unaffected
by the change in the reforming temperature (Fig. 5d), although it
was dependent on the jacket temperature of the MeOH reactor.
Accordingly, when the reforming temperature and the MeOH synthesis temperature were maintained to be high and low, respectively, the amount of CO2 produced (negative overall conversion)
showed the minimum value (Fig. 5b). However, such an operating
condition could not guarantee the highest MeOH production rate
(Fig. 5a), indicating that different operating conditions should be
considered to achieve an optimum balance between achieving
the maximum MeOH production and the minimum CO2
production.

N. Park et al. / Fuel 129 (2014) 163172

171

The CO2 fraction, dened as CO2/(CO2 + H2O), in the feed was

varied since it signicantly inuences the amount of CO2 consumption. As shown in Fig. 6a, the increase of CO2 fraction in the feed
enhanced the rate of dry (CO2) reforming and switched CO2 production to CO2 consumption. A further increase of the CO2 fraction
resulted in the increase of both the overall and local CO2 conversions in the reformer. However, because a relatively higher fraction
of dry reforming occurred compared with the fraction of steam
reforming, there was a decrease in the H2 fraction (the H2/CO ratios
for the dry and steam reforming processes were 1 and 3, respectively). As shown in Fig. 6b, both the CO and CO2 conversions in
the MeOH reactor decreased with increasing CO2 fraction, and
the maximum MeOH production rate was achieved for a low CO2
fraction in the feed (Fig. 6d). This result also shows that, as in
our previous of work on the mixed reforming [17], there exists a
trade-off between the maximum MeOH synthesis and maximum
CO2 conversion.
Equilibrium conversions for CO and CO2 were provided in
Fig. 6a and c. Due to high fraction of H2, the equilibrium CO conversion was close to 100% when CO2 fraction is low, and then it
decreased for CO2 fraction higher than 0.6. Since the ow rate
was high enough, CO conversion at the MeOH reactor outlet was
lower than the equilibrium conversion for entire range of CO2 fraction, indicating that the conversion was not limited by the equilibrium. Meanwhile, the equilibrium CO2 conversion shows
complicated behavior since there exist reactions for both CO2 consumption (CO2 hydrogenation) and generation (WGS reaction) (see
Fig. 3a for overall reactions). When CO2 fraction in the feed (at the
inlet of the reformer) is low, the equilibrium CO2 conversion is
positive because CO2 hydrogenation is more dominant than WGS
reaction at equilibrium, while the opposite behavior is observed
for high CO2 fraction; thus, CO2 conversion should be lower than
the equilibrium conversion when it is positive (no more CO2 is consumed than the equilibrium), whereas the conversion should be
higher than negative equilibrium conversion (no more CO2 is produced than the equilibrium). When CO2 fraction in the feed is close
to 0.1, the CO2 conversion reaches the equilibrium (limited by the
equilibrium), but, the other values maintained the conversion far
from the equilibrium.

was increased at the expense of the separation cost. Additionally,

the increase in the amount of the recycled reactants increased
the amount of CO2 produced in the reformer. Meanwhile, the net
heat ow supplied to the process (the sum of all the heat ows)
per mole MeOH produced signicantly decreased with increasing
recycle ratio; this relationship indicates that CO2 emission can be
decreased in an indirect manner by reducing the consumption of
fossil fuels for heat supply. Overall, the benets of recycling are
the increase in the MeOH productivity and the decrease of CO2
emission by fossil fuels, while the disadvantages are the respective
increases in CO2 generation in the reforming reaction and separation cost of unreacted reactants (related to the increase of CO2
emission due to the increased energy usage in the separator).
In the case of the recycle to the MeOH reactor inlet, a similar
dependence on the recycle ratio was observed, compared to the
recycle to the feed inlet. However, although an increased recycle
ratio increased the MeOH productivity to a higher value than that
observed for the recycle to the feed (right, Fig. 7a), the CO2 production signicantly increased (right, Fig. 7c). Therefore, a balance
existed between the maximum MeOH production and minimum
CO2 production, based on the location and amount of recycle
selected.

3.4. Effect of recycle

Acknowledgement

Two cases were considered for the recycle of unreacted reactants: a recycle to the feed inlet (red colored line in Fig. 3c) or a
recycle to the MeOH reactor inlet (green colored line in Fig. 3c).
For the recycle to the feed inlet, the increase in the fraction of
the recycle stream, dened as recycle/(recycle + purge), increased
the MeOH productivity (left; Fig. 7a). It should be noticed that, a
recycle to the feed inlet resembles existing industrial plants except
that CO2 is injected at the inlet of the reformer. This type of operation has several benets in the sense that it enables to avoid
adjusting the CO2 content at the upstream of the methanol loop.
In addition to this layout which is widely used in the industry, a
recycle to the MeOH reactor was considered since different layout
may result in different CO2 utilization. Another benet of the
recycle is that, since the methanol production is limited by the
chemical equilibrium, the use of a recycle ow can prevent the
related problems, particularly at high temperature. Although both
CO and CO2 conversions were not limited by the equilibrium in the
MeOH reactor without recycle stream in the present study (for
details, refer to Fig. 6 and the corresponding discussion), recycle
was considered to see its effect on the CO2 utilization.
Obviously, the recycle stream increased the amount of total
feed, and consequently the CO conversion was decreased because
of the decreased residence time. However, since productivity is
the product of feed ow rate and conversion, the net productivity

This work was supported by the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) under Energy Efciency
& Resources Programs (Project No. 2012T100201578) of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE), Republic of Korea.

4. Conclusions
The effect of changes in the mixed reforming rate in our previous work was corroborated using experimental data in a benchscale reformer, and a methanol synthesis kinetic model was developed for use in a large-scale reactor with either a powder- or pellet-type catalyst. The resulting reforming kinetic model was useful
in the design of a large-scale reformer, and a MeOH synthesis process, which comprised two reactions to achieve the conversion of
methane to MeOH, was quantitatively analyzed with the help of
kinetic models. In addition to the effects of operating conditions
on MeOH production rate, an analysis of CO2 utilization was performed, and it was clearly shown that a balance could be achieved
between the maximum MeOH production and maximum CO2 utilization (minimum CO2 production).

Appendix A. Supplementary materials

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2014.03.068.
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