Methanol may be produced by the reaction of carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
CO2 + 3H2 → CH3OH + H2O
The fresh feed to the process contains hydrogen and carbon dioxide in stoichiometric proportion, and inerts (I). The reactor effluent passes to a condenser, which removes essentially all of the methanol and water formed, none of the reactants or inerts. The latter substances are recycled to the reactor after mixing with the fresh feed. To avoid build-up of the inerts in the system, a purge stream is withdrawn from the recycle. The fractional split is 0.16. The feed to the reactor has an overall flow rate of 6803 mol/h, which contains 2% inerts. The single-pass conversion of the reactor is 60%. Calculate the molar flow rates of hydrogen and carbon dioxide in the fresh feed, and the production rate of methanol.