Methanol, Overview

It was as long ago as 1931 that ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions first designed and constructed a methanol plant. This plant employed a high-pressure methanol synthesis process, the syngas feed being generated from coal.ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions later constructed the first low-pressure (LP) methanol plant using the copper-based catalyst and providing coal as feedstock. The first modern methanol plant – using steam reforming and a low-pressure synthesis process (50 bar) – was designed and supervised by ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions in Romania in 1972/1974. Even at that time, the plant had all the characteristic features of a modern methanol plant, i.e.:

• Steam reformer technology
• Waste heat recovery system generating 120-bar steam
• Low-pressure synthesis loop (50 bar)
• Efficient grade AA methanol distillation.

Further commercial-scale methanol plants were subsequently engineered for instance in Bahrain (1,250 mtpd) and Libya (2 x 1,250 mtpd).