Application of water vapor-permselective alumina–silica composite membrane in methanol synthesis process to enhance CO2 hydrogenation and catalyst life time

In this work a water vapor-permselective alumina–silica composite membrane reactor is proposed to overcome the thermodynamic equilibrium limitations and increasing catalyst activity. A steady state heterogeneous model is developed to simulate the proposed configuration. To verify accuracy of the considered model, simulation results of a methanol reactor is compared with the industrial plant data. The membrane reactor benefits are: higher carbon dioxide conversion, higher quality of outlet product, higher catalyst activity. Genetic algorithm is employed to optimize the process performance considering methanol production as the objective function. This configuration has enhanced the methanol yield about 7% compared with conventional reactor.