摘要 |
A process for synthesising methanol is described 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 = ([H2] - [CO2]) / ([CO2] + [CO]) of less than 2.0, (ii) combining said make up gas with an unreacted synthesis gas to form a synthesis gas mixture, (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), characterized in that hydrogen is recovered 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. |