Development of a green process for DME production based on the methane tri-reforming

The main object of this research is CO2 conversion to dimethyl ether (DME) based on the coupling methane tri-reforming and DME synthesis units and investigation the performance of developed process by a detail mathematical model. In the developed process, CH4 and CO2 as low-cost feedstocks are converted to DME as green and economic energy carrier that has a lower environment, infrastructure, and transportation issues compared to CH4. In the proposed process, the syngas produced through methane tri-reforming feeds to the DME reactor without any rigorous separation. To investigate the efficiency of the developed process, the conversion section of plant is modeled based on the mass and energy balance equations considering heat and mass transfer resistances, while the separation unit is simulated by an equilibrium-based model. In the next step, an optimization problem is formulated to calculate the optimal operating conditions of process to achieve maximum DME production considering process limitations. The simulation results show that considering some quench points on the tri-reformer to distribute the feed stream along the reactor increases DME production capacity from 150.9 to 243.5 ton day(-1). (C) 2019 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.