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Chemistry and Technology of Fuels and Oils, Vol. 47, No. 2, May, 2011 (Russian Original No. 2, March-April, 2011)
CURRENT PROBLEMS. Process
SIMULATION OF CATALYST ON-LINE REPLACEMENT FOR
FISCHER-TROPSCH SYNTHESIS IN SLURRY BUBBLE
COLUMN REACTOR
Wei Fan
1,2
, Xu Hao
1
, Yuanyuan Xu
1
, and Yongwang Li
1
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
1
State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Taiwan Academy of
Sciences, People’s Republic of China.
2
Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, People’s
Republic of China. Published in revised form in Khimiya i Tekhnologiya Topliv i Masel, No. 2, pp. 26 – 34,
March – April, 2011.
0009-3092/11/4702–0116 © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
A multi-phase dynamic model has been developed for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis in a slurry bubble column
reactor operating in a heterogeneous flow regime. The catalyst particles concentration distribution,
deactivation, and on-line replacement were considered in this model. The population balance equation
model has been utilized to calculate the catalyst age distribution. Based on the dynamic model, the
process of catalyst replacement has been investigated, and the effect of catalyst replacement on the design
and operation of the reactor has been studied. A correlation between the catalyst replacement rate and
the catalyst activity has been developed in this research [
()
∞∞
+−= αeαA
t-k
C
d
1
].
Keywords: Bubble column reactors; dynamic simulation; mathematical modeling; catalyst replacement;
deactivation
1. Introduction
The increasing demand for gasoline and diesel fuels has created renewed interest in the study of
the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) process, which aims to produce middle distillates from coal or natural gas.
The slurry bubble column reactor (SBCR) for FTS has a number of advantages such as good mixing and
heat transfer characteristics, and online removal and addition of catalyst (Dry, 2002; Krishna and Sie, 2000;
Novica et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2007).
The FTS reaction performance is influenced by the catalyst particle concentration distribution
along the reactor and the state of catalyst activation. Quantitative analysis of the solid concentration profile
in SBCR has been investigated, and the sedimentation-dispersion model was established based on
experiments (Cova, 1966; Dennis and John, 1985; Reilly et al., 1990). Considerable research on catalyst has
Impl ementation