TITLE: Liquid Phase Methanol Process Development Unit: Installation, Operation, and Support Studies, Draft Annual Report. Technical Progress Report No. 8, October 1, 1982-September 30, 1983.

INST.  AUTHOR: Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Allentown, PA.

SPONSOR: Chem Systems, Inc., Tarrytown, NY.*Department of Energy, Washington, DC.

LANGUAGE: English

PUB.  TYPE: Technical Report

PUB.  COUNTRY: United States

SOURCE: Department of Energy [DE],  20 Oct 83,  404p.

ABSTRACT:

Engineering of the 5 TPD LPMeOH PDU was completed, and significant progress was made at the LaPorte, TX site. The LaPorte installation work will be totally complete in mid-November 1983, and shakedown will begin as scheduled. Significant new data and results were achieved in the laboratory support programs at Fairfield and Allentown (APCI). Gas phase screening (0.5 inch tubular reactors) of new catalysts for liquid-entrained (slurry) operation was completed in Allentown.  Investigation of some 25 new catalyst preparations led to the advancement of 3 catalyst candidates for liquid phase screening at Fairfield. The catalyst activity with both feed gases was stable, with long, slow deactivation observed (similar to Fairfield), an encouraging result.  Laboratory progress at CSI, Fairfield was significant. Liquid phase screening of outside slurry catalyst candidates in the 2-liter stirred autoclave reactors was completed. Several outside catalyst powders achieved good performance in the liquid phase, and one commercial powder was recommended for advancement to LaPorte. In the fundamental modeling effort, the chemical equilibrium description for the methanol synthesis reaction was improved. Intrinsic kinetics were derived from the data from the stirred autoclave reactors. These kinetics were incorporated along with the gas holdup data into the three-phase backflow model of the liquid-entrained reactor. The model was subsequently used to make predictions of LaPorte performance, and to predict the data of the first Lab PDU slurry run. The early results are quite encouraging. (ERA citation  09:005835)

REPORT  NUMBER: DOE/PC/30019-T9

CONTRACT  NUMBER: AC22-81PC30019