Hybrid ANN and mathematical modeling of a methanol synthesis fixed bed reactor

Recently, methanol synthesis with CO2-rich feed has drawn a lot of attention and research is currently aimed at finding a suitable catalyst for such a task. This paper presents a short description of methanol synthesis and different uses of process models. The paper also provides a mass balance based model for methanol synthesis in a continuous reactor. The model utilizes the kinetic equation proposed by Vanden Bussche and Froment in 1996. Mathematic modeling of methanol unit was performed based on pseudo-homogenous fixed bed reactor model and results of model were compared with results of Khark methanol unit. The proposed model used for calculating of output the reactor against variation of molar flow inlet CO2 then modeling of methanol unit by use of neural network was done with obtained results of mathematical model.