Design and performance of a high-pressure Fischer-Tropsch fluidized bed reactor

A 900 kg/day, CO/H/sub 2/, high-pressure, fluidized bed, pilot reactor was designed from first principles to achieve high reactant conversions and heat removal rates for the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis of liquefied petroleum gases (LPG's). Suppressed bubble growth at high pressure allowed high reactant conversions which nearly matched those obtained at identical conditions in a lab scale fixed bed reactor. For GHSV approximately 1400 hr/sup -1/ and T = 658 {Kappa} at P approximately 7000 {kappa}Pa, reactant conversion exceeded 75%. The reactor heat removal capability exceeded twice design performance with the fluidized bed easily operating under thermally stable conditions. The fluidized catalyst was a potassium promoted, molybdenum on carbon (Mo/{Kappa}/C) catalyst which did not produce any detrimental waxy products. Long catalyst lifetimes of 1000 hrs on steam between regenerations allowed the fluidized bed to be operated in a batch mode.