Methanol Separation by Integrated Membrane Can Increase Output without Increase in Material Consumption

The high-efficiency technology for methanol separation via integrated membrane at the Shanxi Coal Chemical Company has been successfully applied to the internals of methanol separator. The outcome of unit operation for more than one year has revealed that this technology not only has solved the problem of high methanol content in recycle gas exiting the methanol separator, but also has improved the synthesis efficiency, leading to improvements in methanol yield and safety operating coefficient of the integrated compressor, and reduction of energy consumption to assume a leading position in terms of the domestic overall technical level. The methanol content in gas phase exiting the methanol separator has decreased from 0.7%—1.2% to 0.3%—0.6%, which can allow for increase of methanol production by 5%—10%, and in comparison with the conventional methanol separator, the capacity of methanol synthesis section can be increased by 5%—10%, with the service life of internals exceeding 5 years. The innovation of this technology covers the following aspects:

1) The novel materials—high-efficiency fibers—were adopted to optimize and revamp the structure of internals inside the methanol separator without changing the configuration and size of the existing methanol separator;

2) Effective combination of traditional mechanical separation approach with the membrane technology to signi ficantly increase gas-liquid separation ef ficiency; and

3) New internals can secure the smooth operation of the whole system, and the internals can be cleaned on-line or off-line to extend the service life of the membrane internals.