Steady-state Simulation And Analysis Of The Temperature Type Methanol Synthesis Reactor

In this work, a mathematics model of catalyst bed was established based on the 'uniform temperature type' of methanol synthesis reactor in Juhua Ammonia Factory. A program was compiled by using Visual Fortran programming language, which was used to calculating the model parameters. Based on the field data, we calculated the model parameters and validated them.After establishing the mathematics model of catalyst bed, a steady-state simulation flowsheet was built up by using Aspen Plus as the platform and a simulating procedure of the catalyst bed that is implemented with Visual Fortran and integrated into the Aspen Plus flowsheet.By using sensitivity analysis tool in the Aspen Plus, we carried out a series of analysis study on the operation situations of the methanol synthesis reactor:1. The suitable interval of the flow rate ratio of main feed to total feed was studied. It is found that an optimal ratio exists to result maximum yield of methanol.2. The influence of the concentration of CO in feed on the operation situation of the reactor was analyzed quantitatively. The result explained the phenomenon in the factory that the temperature of reactor will be instable as the concentration of CO is high.3. The effect of the concentration of CHsOH in feed was also studied. The result shows that the conversion ratio of CO changes little if the concentration of CH3OH is not high.By modifying the simulation flowsheet structure and parameters, the influence of the variation of flow rate over the section of reactor on the behavior of reactor was studied. It was found that the variation might result in a non-uniform distribution of temperature over the section of reactor and a decrease of the concentration of CHaOH in product.