Assessment of process integration of an up-scaled Fischer-Tropsch-catalyst

Abstract

Chemical industry is facing an upcoming transition from fossil to renewable carbon feedstocks such as CO₂. In this context, processes yielding value-added chemicals are of special interest. For the production of higher alcohols (C≥5), iron-based catalysts have been found to be promising. Herein a design of experiment study for the optimization of the space-time yield in dependence of the reaction conditions was conducted for a technically relevant shaped iron-based catalyst optimized for higher alcohol synthesis. In this context also the influence of CO₂ on the catalytic performance was studied. In order to allow for an assessment of the catalyst performance in a Power-to-Liquid process, the influence of tail gas recirculation on selectivity and yield was evaluated in a scaled-up test plant. The results presented here provide valuable data for an upcoming techno-economic assessment of the whole Power-to-Liquid process chain.