Conversion of the CO and CO2 mixture to alcohols and hydrocarbons by hydrogenation under the influence of the water-gas shift reaction, a thermodynamic consideration

Abstract

Due to the intervention from the water-gas shift (WGS) reaction (or the reverse one (RWGS)), the hydrogenation of CO (or CO2) into alcohols and hydrocarbons often displays rather high selectivity to CO2 (or CO), which makes it rather puzzling to evaluate such conversion processes by using the relatively low selectivity to the target products. Herein, a thermodynamic consideration is made to elaborately evaluate the effect of the WGS/RWGS reaction on the hydrogenation of CO, CO2, and their mixture to typical alcohols (e.g. methanol) and hydrocarbons (e.g. ethene). The results indicate that for the hydrogenation of CO (or CO2), although the WGS (or RWGS) reaction, acting as a communicating vessel connecting CO and CO2, may have a severe influence on the equilibrium conversion of CO (or CO2), forming a large amount of CO2 (or CO), it only has a relatively minor impact on the C-based equilibrium yield of the target alcohol/hydrocarbon product. The hydrogenation of CO shows a higher C-based equilibrium yield for the target product than the hydrogenation of CO2, while the overall C-based equilibrium yield of target product for the hydrogenation of the CO and CO2 mixture just lies in between. For the hydrogenation of the CO and CO2 mixture, although the equilibrium conversion of CO and CO2 may vary greatly with the change in the feed composition, the relation between the overall C-based equilibrium yield of the target product and the feed composition is rather simple; that is, the overall C-based equilibrium yield of alcohol/hydrocarbon product decreases almost lineally with the increase of the CO2/(CO + CO2) molar ratio in the feed. These results strongly suggest that the mixture of CO and CO2 is credible in practice for the production of alcohols and hydrocarbons through hydrogenation, where the overall C-based yield should be used as the major index for the hydrogenation of CO, CO2, and their mixture.