The Methanol Synthesis Process Simulation Study

With ASPEN Plus as the software tool, we set up a flowsheet simulation model for the methanol synthesis process in Juhua Ammonia Factory, and developed a special unit model for the uniform-temperature methanol synthesis reactor by using Visual Fortran as the Programming language.Based on the field data from the factory, we first reconciled the model parameters and the carried out a simulation calculation of the synthesis reactor to analyze the affect of the flow rates of main and assistant feed lines on the operation status of the reactor.On the basis of the reactor simulation, we studied the influence of the cooling status of methanol-cooler on the effect of separation in the raw-methanol separator. The result shows that the cooling temperature affects strongly the separation efficiency because of the limitation of vapor-liquid equilibrium.Also, the influence of the methanol concentration in the feed gas on the synthesis reactor behavior was studied. The result shows that the conversion of feed gas change little as the methanol concentration is low.