(570ae) Effect of Kinetics On Fischer-Tropsch SBCR Performance

Slurry-phase Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis is a proven technology that eventually could alleviate the US dependence on foreign oil imports. Converting natural gas, coal and/or biomass into environmentally-friendly clean synfuels is one of the many attractive aspects of this synthesis. The stumbling block for its worldwide commercialization, however, resides in the difficulties associated with scaling up the Slurry Bubble Column Reactors (SBCRs) used for such a synthesis. These difficulties stem from complex hydrodynamics, limited knowledge on mass/heat transfer, and rather widespread data on reaction kinetics.

In this study, an extensive search was conducted in order to review and evaluate the reaction kinetics available in the literature. Several kinetic expressions for different catalysts were tested in our simulator, which includes a comprehensive computer model built for scaleup and optimization of SBCRs operating under F-T conditions. This simulator includes options for changing the reaction kinetics an addition to new correlations for predicting the hydrodynamic and mass transfer parameters of SBCRs. The simulator was systematically used to predict the impact of different reaction kinetics on the overall performances of a large-scale SBCR operating under typical F-T process conditions.