A comparative analysis of methanol production routes : synthesis gas versus CO 2 hydrogenation

The two processes are proposed to meet the demand for methanol production with focus in the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and operating costs. The first is the conventional process of methanol synthesis from syngas. The new process is the hydrogenation of CO2 for methanol production. This new process can be considered a green chemical process because it uses CO2 as raw material contributing to the mitigation of CO2 (major greenhouse gas). The simulation of this processes were carried out using the Aspen Hysys V7.3 software to assess energy consumption and CO2 emissions in addition to process conditions. The influence of various process conditions as pressure, H2/CO2 ratio and (H2-CO2)/(CO2+CO) were analyzed from different parameters as selectivity to methanol, CO and CO2conversion, methanol production. In all cases studied the processes were evaluated at 245 °C to produce 465 kta of methanol for define the behavior of the operation conditional, to compare the energy consumption and the CO2 emission of the two process.