Study on Reduction for Methanal Low Pressure Synthesis Catalyst

The formation process of the methanal low pressure synthesis catalyst is divided into two steps: one is to make metal components into oxides; the other is to reduce the oxides to metals with hydrogen. The latter process is called the reduction process, also known as the activation of the catalyst. 

The elevated temperature reduction of catalysts is an important step in methanol synthesis. The success of the reduction has a significant impact on the activity of the catalyst, and is directly related to the production capacity of methanol and the life of the catalyst.

Reduction space velocity selection

Theoretically speaking, the larger the reduction space velocity of the catalyst, the better. As the space velocity increases, the number of oxygen removed by the active components per unit time will increase. After reduction, the grains of active copper will be smaller, thereby increasing the surface area and correspondingly improving the activity of the catalyst. Since copper oxide releases 8.79x104J of heat per gram molecule of copper oxide during the reduction of copper catalyst, the high space velocity can bring the heat to the lower layer in time, reducing the temperature difference between the upper and lower layers, avoiding local overheating of the catalyst in the column. It can accelerate the reduction speed and shorten the reduction time , evenly discharge water. However, in actual production operations, the space velocity limit should be determined by the thermal equilibrium conditions. The current space velocity in the factory is generally selected to be 1x10⁴h^-1~1.5x10⁴h^-1.