Kinetics of low-pressure methanol synthesis

The kinetics of low-pressure methanol synthesis, starting from CO, CO2 and hydrogen over a commercial CuZnAl catalyst, were studied in a spinning basket reactor at p = 15–50 bar and T = 210–245°C. The results show that methanol can be formed from both CO and CO2. Besides these two reactions the water-gas-shift reaction takes place. Based on these three reactions and a dual-site adsorption mechanism, 48 kinetic rate models are derived. Hydrogen is believed to adsorb dissociatively. The experimental results support this assumption. Based on χ2-statistics and consistency tests a final kinetic rate model is selected. This kinetic model gives a significantly better agreement with the experimental results than kinetic models taken from recent literature.