Improvement of Methanol Production from Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen by a Sorption Enhanced Reaction Process

Abstract

Climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions is one of the most concerning problems worldwide. CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) technologies are not enough to achieve climatic goals, so there is the need to embrace new processes, like CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage). Hydrogenation of CO₂ to produce methanol is one of the most feasible ways, however, the conversion rates are small. It could be solved by a SERP process (Sorption Enhanced Reaction Process), displacing the reaction equilibrium through the adsorption of the products, water and methanol.
There is scarce information of the adsorption of these compounds, especially methanol, at the reaction temperature (200-300 ºC). In this work, adsorption equilibrium and diffusional parameters for water and methanol are obtained for the design of a SERP process. 3A zeolite, silica gel and silica-alumina have been studied at temperatures of 200-300ºC by a chromatographic method. The performance of these adsorbents in a PSA reactor for CO₂ hydrogenation with a commercial catalyst (Cu/Z nO/Al₂O₃) is compared by simulation.