Abstract
GTL (Gas-to-liquid) process is becoming an attractive technology which can produce liquid petroleum products using natural gas. As a part of preliminary design of GTL-FPSO application, process simulation analysis for conceptual design and optimization of reformers and F-T reactors are performed in GTL-FPSO applications by implementing the user made subroutine programs of kinetic equations into PRO/II PROVISION simulator. As for the F-T reactors, Plug Flow Reactor (PFR) model is used with detailed kinetics equations over two different Fe based catalysts (Fe-Cu-K and K/Fe-Cu-Al). Dry reformer is also studied with Plug Flow Reactor (PFR) model. In this study, simulation results are compared with available experimental data and found well agreed with experimental data for both reformer and FT reactor. The Peng-Robinson equation of state is also used to calculate the vapor phase non-idealities and vapor-liquid equilibrium. The optimum operating conditions and process simulation analysis are also presented.
Highlights
Due to the era of high oil prices recently, the importance of synthetic oil manufacturing technology using natural gas is emerging gradually and the necessity of an environment-friendly fuel leads to the development of BTL (Biomass-to-liquid), CTL (Coal-to-liquid), and GTL processes
The choice of catalysts should be dependent on the economics of the GTL process, the selectivity of product distributions and the operating conditions of the process. In this design of FT reactor, steady state simulations and optimizations are performed with a plug flow reactor (PFR) and two different kinetic equations over Fe-Cu-K and K/Fe-Cu-Al catalysts by implementing the user made subroutine programs of these kinetic equations into PRO/II PROVISION simulator and comparisons are reported for the both cases.F-T reactor consist of three major reactions such as the formation of paraffins (CnH2n+2), the formation olefins (CnH2n), and water gas shift (WGS) reactions in the following Eq (2) to (4)
For the application of GTL-FPSO processes, comparisons of experimental with simulated molar flow rates of products are made by using kinetics model over
Summary
Due to the era of high oil prices recently, the importance of synthetic oil manufacturing technology using natural gas is emerging gradually and the necessity of an environment-friendly fuel leads to the development of BTL (Biomass-to-liquid), CTL (Coal-to-liquid), and GTL (gas-to-liquid) processes. First step is the production of synthesis gas (syngas) which consists of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gases by reforming reaction [4]-[7]. Carbon dioxide and other impurities should be removed before F-T reactor, which can cause the low efficiency of F-T reactor. Natural gas is used as a raw material to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide which results in H2/CO mole ratio of 2. This ratio is known as an optimum condition for F-T synthetic process to produce synthetic fuel [8, 9]
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