The Simulation Study Of Methanol Synthesis Process

200,000 T/Y Methanol production unit in Shanghai Coking and Chemical Corporation is one of the biggest Methanol production unit in China at present, and Methanol synthesis process is the most important step in Methanol production. In this paper I have utilized Aspen Plus and Multi-layered forward artificial neural network based on Matlab as modeling tools respectively to establish reasonable process simulation models specially for Shanghai Coking's methanol synthesis process, so that we could get the useful information for actual production, moreover we could gain the objective of raising yield, decreasing energy consumption, stabilizing production and achieving more economic benefits.Main studies and main achievements in this paper are as follows: 1 the methanol synthesis simulation model which was established with Aspen Plus software can reflect the actual situation of methanol synthesis system, and this model can be applied to the modeling and simulation for methanol synthesis process.2 Multi-layered forward neural network has been established with Matlab Software for methanol synthesis process. Then the multi-layered forward neural network was used to predict the mass-fraction of methanol product according to the existing production datas. The results showed that the relative error between prediction value and production value is very small, so that we could draw theconclusion that the established multi-layered neural network is reasonable, and can be applied to guide production.3 Based on the two above-mentioned simulation model, the influences of some major operating parameters such as operating pressure, recycling ratio, inert gas concentration in feed gas, the outlet gas temperature of cooler and H/C ratio in feed gas on methanol synthesis process have also been analyzed, the result can well reflect the actual situation of methanol synthesis mechanism, which can be summarized as follows: within certain range the higher pressure and higher recycle ratio, the lower inert gas concentration in the feed and lower outlet gas temperature of cooler are favorable to increase methanol yield and reduce feed consumption.