One of the solutions to recycle CO2 as chemical feedstock is to convert CO2 to methanol (MeOH), leading to the production of a vriety of basic chemicals. While MeOH synthesis is currently produced from syngas at 473 – 573 K and 5 – 10 MPa over Cu/ZnO catalyst, low one-pass yield of MeOH is the issue owing to thermodynamic restriction. Membrane reactor using a MeOH and water permselective membrane would be a good candidate to mitigate this issue, as seen Fig. 1. In this commnication, we will report the efficacy of membrane reactor concept for MeOH synthesis based on the results of both experiments and simulation. We prepared Na-ZSM-5 membrane on porous a-alumina tube (10 mm diameter and 30 mm long) by a seed-assisted hydrothermal synthesis method, and Cu/ZnO/g-Al2O3 catalyst by a coprecipitation method. Membrane reactor test was performed at 543 K at 1.0 MPa. The permeation side was swept by He. Fig. 2 shows a typical exoperimental result. Since MeOH and water selectively permeated from the feed side to the permeation side, the total MeOH flow rate as the sum of its flow rates in the permeation and reaction sides reached 2.0 times larger that obtained with the conventional packed bed reactor. Simulatyion results were in good agreemnt with the experimental ones, nicely supporting the efficacy of membrane reactor.

CO2 coversion to MeOH with membrane reactor using zeolite membrane

256th National Meeting (2018)

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