Correlation between hydrocarbon distribution and water-hydrocarbon ratio in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

Abstract In order to shorten the evaluation cycle of cobalt catalyst before the optimized catalyst is fixed on, a mathematical method is proposed to calculate weight percentage of C5 + hydrocarbons. Based on the carbide polymerization mechanism and the main hydrocarbons being linear alkanes and a-olefins, the correlation between hydrocarbon distribution and the molecular mass ratio of water to hydrocarbons is discussed. The result shows the ratio was within the range of 1.125 −1.286 and the lower the ratio, the more gaseous hydrocarbons were obtained. Moreover, a linear equation between the weight percentage of C5 + hydrocarbons and the weight ratio of C5 + hydrocarbons to the total water is established. These results are validated by corresponding experiments. The weight percentage of C5 + hydrocarbons could be immediately calculated by this linear equation without detailed gas chromatography (GC) analysis of them.