Simulation and sensitivity analysis on methanol plant by Aspen Plus and designexpert

In the present study, the Lurgi’s methanol production loop is simulated by design and operating data. The best-fitted kinetic and thermodynamic models are used to analyze the trends and kinetic features related to methanol synthesis. The results of simulations are validated with the industrial data and good agreements are observed between the plant data and the simulation results. The comparison between simulation results of the design data and the operating data shows that changing of the inlet temperature and mole fractions of CO and CO2has effects on the methanol production rate. Thus, a sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the effects of the process factors, and results show that the gas inlet conditions, the cooling water temperature and the heat coefficient are considered as the process factors

Keywords:

methanol synthesis , simulation , sensitivity , RSM , synthesis analysis , design expert