Separation of fischer Tropsch Wax Products for Ultrafine Iron Catalyst Particles. Technical Progress Report for Reporting Period fo April 1, 2005-September 30, 2005
Neathery, J. K. ; Jacobs, G. ; Sarkar, A. ; Davis, B. H.
In this reporting period, a study of ultra-fine iron catalyst filtration was initiated to study the behavior of ultra-fine particles during the separation of Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis (FTS) liquids filtration. The overall focus of the program is with slurry-phase FTS in slurry bubble column reactor systems. Hydrocarbon products must be separated from catalyst particles before being removed from the reactor system. An efficient wax product/catalyst separation system is a key factor for optimizing operating costs for iron-based slurry-phase FTS. Previous work has focused on catalyst particle attrition and the formation of ultra-fine iron carbide and/or carbon particles. With the current study, we are investigating how the filtration properties are affected by these chemical and physical changes of the catalyst slurry during activation/synthesis.