The concept of integrated thermally double coupled reactor for simultaneous production of methanol, hydrogen and gasoline via differential evolution method

The concept of integrated thermally double coupled reactor is proposed as an alternative for reduction of environmental emissions and consumption of energy, minimizing capital and operating costs and increasing production and efficiency of the processes. The goal of this study is simultaneous production of hydrogen, methanol and high octane gasoline in a novel thermally double coupled reactor. This configuration is a multi-tubular reactor in which the required heat for the endothermic decalin dehydrogenation is provided by two exothermic reactions: methanol production and Fisher-Tropsch synthesis (FTS). Differential evolution (DE) method is also used in order to find the optimal operating conditions for the enhancement of methanol mole fraction as well as gasoline yield in the outlet of thermally double coupled reactor. The results of methanol production in the optimized thermally double coupled reactor are compared with the conventional methanol synthesis reactor. This comparison shows that in addition to higher methanol productivity in the optimized thermally double coupled reactor (10.52% increase compared with conventional methanol synthesis reactor), hydrogen, naphthalene and gasoline are also produced as an additional valuable products in a favorable mode. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.