Shen, Yadi, Dong, Yingchao, Han, Xiaoxia, Wu, Jinde, Xue, Kun, Jin, Meizhu, Xie, Gang, and Xu, Xinying
Methanation is the core process of synthetic natural gas, the performance of the entire reaction system depends on precise values of the reaction condition parameters. Accurate predictions of the CO conversion rate of the methanation reaction can eliminate time-consuming and complex steps in experiments and speed up the discovery of the best reaction conditions. However, the methanation reaction is an uncertain, highly complex, and highly nonlinear process. Thus, this paper proposes a machine learning prediction model for the methanation reaction to facilitate the subsequent search for optimal reaction conditions. The reaction temperature, pressure, hydrogen–carbon ratio, water vapor content, CO 2 content, and space velocity were selected as the condition variables. The CO conversion rate was the optimization objective. An extreme learning machine (ELM) was selected as a prediction model. Because the input weights and bias matrices of the ELM are randomly generated, an ELM based on a state transition simulated annealing (STASA-ELM) algorithm is proposed. The STASA algorithm was used to optimize the ELM to improve the accuracy and stability of the model. Five additional sets of experimental data were designed for the experiment, and the error between the experimental and predicted values was small. Thus, the STASA-ELM algorithm can accurately predict the conversion of CO for different values of reaction conditions. [Display omitted] • Methanation reaction conditions were predictively modeled by machine learning. • ELM-STASA optimization improved the stability and accuracy of model prediction. • Very small error was obtained between predicted and experimental results. • Machine learning showed advantages with saving time, labor and material resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]