Simultaneous Process Design of a Cooled Tubular Fischer–Tropsch Reactor

Abstract

Few examples of complex petrochemical industry simultaneous designs exist that address dynamic controllability of exothermal reactors. Herein, a multi‐stage design for a cooled tubular Fischer–Tropsch reactor is presented. This steady‐state design is optimized, and a dynamic control scheme is developed in the context of a larger gas‐to‐liquid synthesis process. It is shown that, for the Fe‐based catalyst considered, this multi‐stage configuration reduces both the required heat transfer area and the active catalyst mass in the reactor when compared with a single‐stage approach using a constant catalyst activity. The issues encountered in the dynamic simulation of the control structure for this system are also addressed.