Investigation of low-temperature methanol synthesis in a bubble column slurry reactor with a flash column

Reaction performance of a CuCr/CH3ONa catalyst for the low-temperature methanol synthesis was examined in a bubble column slurry reactor with a flash column (BCSR/FC). The BCSR/FC was operated at 4.5 ± 0.2 MPa/110–120 °C for BCSR and 0.4 ± 0.1 MPa/80–90 °C for FC, although fluctuation of operation parameters was larger. Syngas conversion decreased from 71.0% to 19.8% during the operation test in 100 h, which was attributed to consumption of CH3ONa and a negative effect of the emulsifier OP-10 used.