KINETICS OF SLURRY PHASE FISCHER-TROPSCH SYSTHESIS

Abstract

This report covers the third year of this research grant under the University Coal Research program. The overall objective of this project is to develop a comprehensive kinetic model for slurry phase Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) on iron catalysts. This model will be validated with experimental data obtained in a stirred tank slurry reactor (STSR) over a wide range of process conditions. The model will be able to predict molar flow rates and concentrations of all reactants and major product species (H{sub 2}O, CO{sub 2}, linear 1- and 2-olefins, and linear paraffins) as a function of reaction conditions in the STSR. During the reporting period we utilized experimental data from the STSR, that were obtained during the first two years of the project, to perform vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) calculations and estimate kinetic parameters. We used a modified Peng-Robinson (PR) equation of state (EOS) with estimated values of binary interaction coefficients for the VLE calculations. Calculated vapor phase compositions were in excellent agreement with experimental values from the STSR under reaction conditions. Occasional discrepancies (for some of the experimental data) between calculated and experimental values of the liquid phase composition were ascribed to experimental errors. The VLE calculations show that the vapor and the liquid are in thermodynamic equilibrium under reaction conditions. Also, we have successfully applied the Levenberg-Marquardt method (Marquardt, 1963) to estimate parameters of a kinetic model proposed earlier by Lox and Froment (1993b) for FTS on an iron catalyst. This kinetic model is well suited for initial studies where the main goal is to learn techniques for parameter estimation and statistical analysis of estimated values of model parameters. It predicts that the chain growth parameter ({alpha}) and olefin to paraffin ratio are independent of carbon number, whereas our experimental data show that they vary with the carbon number. Predicted molar flow rates of inorganic species, n-paraffins and total olefins were generally not in good agreement with the corresponding experimental values. In the future we'll use kinetic models based on non-constant value of {alpha}.