Sorption enhanced process by integrated heat-exchanger reactor assisted by fluidization concept for methanol synthesis

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Coupling reactor has been identified as one of the most promising configurations for simultaneous production of methanol and hydrogen; as well stabilizing the atmospheric greenhouse gases level. In this work, methanol synthesis is carried out in exothermic side, which is a fluidized-bed reactor with in-situ water adsorption and supplies the necessary heat for the dehydrogenation of cyclohexane in endothermic side. Simulation results show that selective water adsorption from methanol synthesis in Fluidized bed Sorption Enhanced Thermally Coupled Reactor (FSE-TCR) leads to a considerable intensification of methanol production compared to zero solid mass ratio condition. Subsequently, a multi-objective optimization of FSE-TCR is conducted using the NSGA-II algorithm, and Pareto optimal frontiers are obtained in two cases including the maximum methanol production rate and selectivity. The Shannon’s Entropy, LINMAP, and TOPSIS methods as three decision making approaches are used to select the final solution of Pareto front. The optimization results enhance about 214.3 and 280.5tonday−1 methanol production rate and CO2 removal rate, respectively, based TOPSIS methods in comparison with the conventional methanol configuration. Furthermore, the optimization results represent 6.88tonday−1 enhancement in hydrogen production rate in comparison with the non-optimized configuration using the same catalyst loading and duty.