A New Supercritical Phase Methanol Synthesis Process

Abstract

The high activity of supercritical phase methanol synthesis was developed. Supercritical alcohol, a catalytic solvent, which conventionally promotes the heat and product removal, can also accelerate the new reaction route. It was shown that the activity of supercritical alcohol such as 2-propanol was higher than that of supercritical n-hexane, which only enhanced the activity by facilitating heat and product removal from the catalyst bed. The combination of supercritical fluid and catalytic solvent effects broke through the thermodynamic limitation of the reaction efficiency.