Modelling of an industrial process for the catalytic production of methanol with Aspen Plus

Solutions to reduce CO2 levels include reducing emissions, increasing absorption, using carbon capture technology, and converting CO2 into methanol, which has various industrial, commercial and household uses and as fuel for vehicles. Aspen Plus was used to develop a process simulation test case and validate it with existing data from the literature. A reaction kinetic model to describe the reaction rates of methanol synthesis and the reverse water gas shift reaction from the literature was selected and its implementation was tested achieving similar profiles to the published data. The validated kinetic model was used to simulate an industrial process for methanol production from CO2 and H2, considering the equipment necessary to pre and post treat the stream to and from the catalytic reactor. Different operative conditions were tested and the results from the catalytic reactor were compared against the thermodynamic limit obtained at the equilibrium. The results showed that as temperature and pressure increased, the CO2 conversion initially increased, reached a maximum and then started to decrease, thus revealing the existence of an optimum in the CO2 conversion profile. Further economic evaluation of the plant is necessary to determine the profitability of the configuration. Overall, the validated kinetic model can be used to optimize the catalytic process for methanol production from CO2 and H2, which is promising approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and utilizing waste CO2.