Investigation of thermally double coupled double membrane heat exchanger reactor to produce dimethyl ether and methyl formate

•Thermally double-coupled double membrane reactor has been modeled.•Simultaneous production of DME and MF was investigated.•The developed model was optimized by using Genetic Algorithm.•OTDMHR provided higher products conversion respect to TDHR.

Owing to concerns associated with energy consumption and energy intensive methods in the chemical industries, the present study aims to investigate production of some downstream products of natural gas in a recuperative configuration. Accordingly, simultaneous production of dimethyl ether from methanol and syngas and also methyl formate from methanol is investigated in a catalytic heat-exchanger reactor assisted with water perm-selective membranes. Dimethyl ether synthesis from methanol and syngas are exothermic reactions supplying required energy for the methanol dehydrogenation reaction. Produced waters in both exothermic sides are eliminated from reaction media by permeation through the perm-selective membranes equipped on the inner and outer surfaces of the reactor. A feasibility study is implemented through a mathematical model based on mass and energy balance. Genetic algorithm as a powerful method in nonlinear optimization problems is applied to obtain optimum operating conditions. 97% methanol conversion to dimethyl ether, 66% methanol conversion to methyl formate and 17% hydrogen conversion are the advancements of the proposed thermally double-coupled double-membrane reactor working under optimum conditions.

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