Patent ID: 7786180
Filing Date: 2010-08-31
Classification: C07C,C12C,Y02P

Abstract:
1. A process for synthesising methanol comprising the steps of; (i) reforming a hydrocarbon feedstock and separating water from the resulting reformed gas mixture to generate a make up gas comprising hydrogen and carbon oxides, said make up gas mixture having a stoichiometric number, R, defined by the formula; R=([H (ii) forming a synthesis gas mixture consisting of said make up gas, an unreacted synthesis gas and a hydrogen stream, (iii) passing the synthesis gas mixture at elevated temperature and pressure through a bed of methanol synthesis catalyst to generate a product stream comprising methanol and unreacted synthesis gas, (iv) cooling said product stream to recover a crude methanol stream from said unreacted synthesis gas, (v) removing a portion of said unreacted synthesis gas as a purge gas, and (vi) feeding the remaining unreacted synthesis gas to step (ii) wherein hydrogen is recovered using a hydrogen recovery unit from at least a portion of said purge gas and a portion of said make up gas, and the recovered hydrogen is included in the synthesis gas mixture.