Process for the production of methanol

摘要

A process for the production of methanol, which exhibits high energy efficiency and permits the production of methanol with apparatus of which the production capacity can be increased, the process comprising a primary reforming step of catalytically reacting a hydrocarbon with steam, a partial oxidation step of partially oxidizing a gas fed from the above primary reforming reaction step by adding an oxygen gas, a secondary reforming step of catalytically reacting a gas fed from the above partial oxidation step with steam, a step of using a high-temperature gas obtained from the secondary reforming reaction step, as a heat source for the primary reforming step, a synthesis gas preparation step of separating steam from the gas used as the above heat source to prepare a synthesis gas, and a methanol synthesis step of introducing the synthesis gas into a methanol synthesis reactor using a fluid catalyst, wherein: the molar ratio of hydrogen to carbon oxides in the feed gas to into the methanol synthesis reactor, represented by [H2/(2CO+3CO2)], is set at from 1.0 to 2.7, the molar ratio of CO2/CO in the feed gas into the methanol synthesis reactor is set at from 0.6 to 1.2, a gas from the methanol synthesis reactor is partially introduced into the methanol synthesis reactor as a circulating gas together with the synthesis gas.