Kinetics of the water-gas shift reaction in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis over a nano-structured iron catalyst

Robust Prediction of Filtrate Flux for Separation of Catalyst Particles from Wax Effluent of Fischer-Tropsch Bubble Column Reactor via Regularization Network

The effectiveness of an internal filtration system intended for separation of wax-catalyst from Fischer–Tropsch synthesis products is investigated in the present study. The generalization performances of in-house Regularization Network (RN) equipped with efficient training algorithm is recruited for prediction of filtrate flux. The network was trained by resorting several sets of experimental data obtained from a specific system of air/paraffin liquid phase/alumina oxide particle conducted in a slurry bubble column reactor. The RN is employed to explore the relationship between the slurry phase temperature (10–60 °C), pressure difference (0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 bar) and time (0–120 min) on the rate of outcome filtrate from various size of filter element (4, 8 and 12 microns). The superior recall and validation performances with different exemplars data points show that the optimally trained RN which has solid roots in multivariate regularization theory, is a reliable tool for prediction of filtrate flux. Faithful generalization performance of RN revels that around 66 % reduction in filtrate flux is observed by decreasing temperature from 60 {}_{}^ \circ C to10 {}_{}^ \circ C for filter pore size of 4 microns. Decreasing of slurry viscosity is the main reason of such behavior. Increasing pressure driving force has a significant effect on elevating filtrate flux. Due to cake formation, filtrate flux is decreased from 2 to 1.4 (ml/min.cm2) at constant temperature of 60 {}_{}^ \circ C for filter pore size of 8 microns. Furthermore, the backwashing process is more effective for smaller pore size filter and temperature variation does not have any considerable effect on filter recovery.

Kinetics of CO2 Hydrogenation to Hydrocarbons over Iron-Silica Catalysts

The conversion of CO₂ to hydrocarbons is increasingly seen as a potential alternative source of fuel and chemicals, while at the same time contributing to addressing global warming effects. An understanding of kinetics and mass transfer limitations is vital to both optimise catalyst performance and to scale up the whole process. In this work we report on a systematic investigation of the influence of the different process parameters, including pore size, catalyst support particle diameter, reaction temperature, pressure and reactant flow rate on conversion and selectivity of iron nanoparticle -silica catalysts. The results provided on activation energy and mass transfer limitations represent the basis to fully design a reactor system for the effective catalytic conversion of CO₂ to hydrocarbons.

Fe-based heterogeneous catalysts for the Fischer-Tropsch reaction: Sonochemical synthesis and bench-scale experimental tests

The sonochemical synthesis of nanostructured materials owes its origins to the extreme conditions created during acoustic cavitation, i.e., the formation of localized hot spots in the core of collapsing bubbles in a liquid irradiated with high intensity ultrasound (US). In particular, in the present work a sonochemical synthesis has been investigated for the production of three different iron-based samples supported on SiO₂ and loaded with different metals and promoters (10 %wt of Fe; 30 %wt of Fe; 30 %wt of Fe, 2 %wt of K and 3.75 %wt of Cu) active in the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process. Sonochemically synthesized heterogeneous catalysts were characterized by BET, XRPD, TPR, ICP, CHN, TEM, SEM and then tested in a fixed bed FT-bench-scale rig fed with a mixture of H₂ and CO at a H₂/CO molar ratio equal to 2, at activation temperatures of 350-400°C and reaction temperatures of 250-260°C. The experimental results showed that the ultrasonic samples are effective catalysts for the FT process. Notably, increasing the activation temperature increased CO conversion, while product selectivity did not diminish. All the sonochemically prepared samples presented in this work provided better catalytic results compared to the corresponding traditional FT impregnated catalysts.