Deactivation kinetics of various metal oxides promoted methanol synthesis catalyst

Methanol is produced from synthesis gas mixtures (CO/CO2/H2) over a Cu/ZnO/Al2O3catalyst with a worldwide production over 50 million tons per year [1]. The catalyst can bedeactivated by chemical poisoning and thermal sintering[2, 3]. Under normal operation onlysinteringoccurs, because the catalyst poisons are removed from the synthesis gas earlierin theprocess. Surprisingly, in spite of the importance of deactivation to plant operation, relativelyfew studies have been reported on the phenomenon and the literature on sintering is mainlyqualitative. The purpose ofthis study isfinding a good kinetic model of this process.