Syngas methanation in fluidized bed for an advanced two-stage process of SNG production

The two-stage methanation process combining a fast fluidized bed as the main reactor and a tail-end clean-up fixed bed is potentially a highly competitive advanced technology for SNG production from syngas. For the high heat-carrying capacity of catalyst particles, the heat carried by catalyst is about 12.1 times of that carried by the product gas at a reactor exit temperature of 723 K, and the required circulation rate of catalyst was 90.8 kg · m− 2.s− 1, a value that is practically possible for the fast fluidized bed operation. Meanwhile, process simulation shows that the CO conversion and selectivity to CH4 are all close to the hydrodynamic equilibrium and indeed not dominated by kinetics.