Methanol is being produced by 30-40 million ton per year from CO/CO2/H2. It is commercially produced by ICI process at high temperature and pressure (523-573 K, 50-100 bar), using Cu/ZnO. However, at high temperature, the exothermic reactions thermodynamically limit theoretic CO conversion to about 10% at 573 K and 50 bar. Therefore, developing a low-temperature process will greatly reduce the production cost. A new low-temperature methanol synthesis from CO/H2 containing CO2 was proposed via reactions (1) - (3) where ROH acts as a catalytic solvent. This new process showed the high activity and selectivity of MeOH synthesis (CO conversion of 50% and MeOH selectivity of 98%). |
