Bio-methanol from Bio-oil Reforming Syngas Using Dual-reactor

A dual-reactor, assembled with the on-line syngas conditioning and methanol synthesis, was successfully applied for high efficient conversion of rich CO₂ bio-oil derived syngas to bio-methanol. In the forepart catalyst bed reactor, the catalytic conversion can effectively adjust the rich-CO₂crude bio-syngas into the CO-containing bio-syngas using the CuZnAlZr catalyst. After the on-line syngas conditioning at 450 oC, the CO₂/CO ratio in the bio-syngas significantly decreased from 6.3 to 1.2. In the rearward catalyst bed reactor, the conversion of the conditioned bio-syngas to bio-methanol shows the maximum yield about 1.21 kg/(kg_catal·h) MeOH with a methanol selectivity of 97.9% at 260 oC and 5.05 MPa using conventional CuZnAl catalyst, which is close to the level typically obtained in the conventional methanol synthesis process using natural gas. The influences of temperature, pressure and space velocity on the bio-methanol synthesis were also investigated in detail.