4 replies to this topic

[chessboss]

Hello, I have a distillation column to separate methanol and water. Methanol leaves the condenser at atmospheric pressure and saturated temperature. Is it necessary to further cool the methanol before it enters a storage tank. I have searched the forum and it appears that lpg, ethylene, propane are stored as saturated liquid, rather than subcooled. I was wondering if the same could be done for methanol.

[fallah]

chessboss,

 

 

Please specify:

 

How much is the saturated temperature?

 

How much is the maximum ambient temperature?
 

[chessboss]

Hi, the saturated temperature is 67C and the maximum ambient temperature is 40C.

[fallah]

Hi, the saturated temperature is 67C and the maximum ambient temperature is 40C.

 

chessboss,

 

Then it will be subcooled by ambient and can be stored either in a fixed roof under N2 blanketing or a floating roof tank.
 

[DB Shah]

Methanol is sub cooled to reduce vapour losses from tank. To sub cool materials like LPG you need a heat sink which will be at lower temperature compared to saturation temperature of LPG. In this case cooling water will be handy media to sub cool methanol.

 

For small storage (100 to 500 MT) you may go with fixed roof tank with blanket N2, however as the storage capacity increases, it will be economical to store in a Internal floating roof tank.