Intensified Fischer–Tropsch synthesis process with microchannel catalytic reactors

Abstract

A microchannel catalytic reactor with improved heat and mass transport has been used for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. It was demonstrated that this microchannel reactor based process can be carried out at gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) as high as 60,000 h −1 to achieve greater than 60% of single-pass CO conversion while maintaining relatively low methane selectivity (<10%) and high chain growth probability (>0.9). In this study, performance data were obtained over a wide range of pressure (10–35 atm) and hydrogen-to-carbon monoxide ratio (1–2.5). The catalytic materials were characterized using BET, scanning electron microcopy (SEM), transmission electron microcopy (TEM), and H 2 chemisorption. A three-dimensional pseudo-homogeneous model was used to simulate temperature profiles in the exothermic reaction system in order to optimize the reactor design. Intraparticle non-isothermal characteristics are also analyzed for the FT synthesis catalyst.