Comparative Study on Simultaneous Production of Methanol, Hydrogen, and DME Using a Novel Integrated Thermally Double-Coupled Reactor

Abstract

The present paper focuses on simulation of a catalytic thermally double-coupled reactor (TDCR) in cocurrent mode. In this novel configuration, the endothermic reaction of cyclohexane dehydrogenation has coupled with two exothermic reactions: methanol production and direct DME synthesis from syngas to improve the heat transfer between the endothermic and the exothermic sides. A multitubular reactor with 2962 three concentric tubes has been considered for TDCR. A steady state heterogeneous catalytic reaction model is applied to analyze the performance of TDCR for simultaneous production of methanol, hydrogen, and dimethyl ether (DME). Simulation results of TDCR have been compared with corresponding predictions for an industrial methanol reactor (CMR) and thermally coupled reactor (coupling of methanol synthesis with cyclohexane dehydrogenation), operated at the same feed conditions. Results showed that by this novel configuration production of methanol and hydrogen increases from 345.48 to 373.21 kmol h–1 and 250.6 to 1066.3 kmol h–1 in comparison with TCR, respectively. In addition, production of DME with a rate of 277.24 kmol h–1 is another superiority of TDCR. In addition, hydrogen production in the endothermic side of TDCR in each of the three concentric tubes (0.1 mol s–1) is higher than hydrogen consumption in methanol synthesis (0.076 mol s–1).