Abstract
Society is facing serious challenges to reduce CO2 emissions. Effective change requires the use of advanced chemical catalyst and reactor systems to utilize renewable feedstocks. One pathway to long-term energy storage is its transformation into high quality, low-emission and CO2-neutral fuels. Performance of technologies such as the Fischer-Tropsch reaction can be maximized using the inherent advantages of microstructured packed bed reactors. Advantages arise not only from high conversion and productivity, but from its capability to resolve the natural fluctuation of renewable sources. This work highlights and evaluates a system for dynamic feed gas and temperature changes in a pilot scale Fischer-Tropsch synthesis unit for up to 7 L of product per day. Dead times were determined for non-reactive and reactive mode at individual positions in the setup. Oscillating conditions were applied to investigate responses with regard to gaseous and liquid products. The system was stable at short cycle times of 8 min. Neither of the periodic changes showed negative effects on the process performance. Findings even suggest this technology’s capability for effective, small-to-medium-scale applications with periodically changing process parameters. The second part of this work focuses on the application of a real-time photovoltaics profile to the given system.
Highlights
The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is a polymerization type reaction, which converts synthesis gas into many different hydrocarbons; ranging from methane to carbon chains with over 100 carbon atoms
Calculation of weight hourly space velocity (WHSV), the chain growth probability (α), conversion levels, selectivity, and productivity are described in detail there as well; those calculations do not differ from methods widely used in literature
Product water is collected in the cold trap and is separated manually from the liquid FTS product
Summary
The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is a polymerization type reaction, which converts synthesis gas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide) into many different hydrocarbons; ranging from methane to carbon chains with over 100 carbon atoms. Those products can be distinguished as gases, liquids or solids under ambient conditions. Water is produced as a byproduct of the reaction. Specific metal surfaces are necessary to boost the reaction rate and to optimize the chain distribution, which makes the FTS a prominent example for heterogeneous catalysis. The reaction equation, based on synthesis gas to produce linear alkanes, is shown in Equation (1) [1,2,3]:
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