SEPARATION OF FISCHER-TROPSCH WAX FROM CATALYST BY SUPERCRITICAL EXTRACTION

The objective of this research project is to evaluate the potential of supercritical fluid (SCF) extraction for the recovery and fractionation of the wax product from the slurry bubble column (SBC) reactor of the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process. The wax, comprised mostly of branched and linear alkanes with a broad molecular weight distribution up to C{sub 100}, will be extracted with a hydrocarbon solvent that has a critical temperature near the operating temperature of the SBC reactor, i.e., 200-300 C. Initial work is being performed using n-hexane as the solvent. The success of the project depends on two factors. First, the supercritical solvent must be able to dissolve the F-T wax; furthermore, this must be accomplished at conditions that do not entrain the solid catalyst. Second, the extraction must be controlled so as not to favor the removal of the low molecular weight wax compounds. That is, a constant carbon-number distribution in the wax slurry must be maintained at steady-state column operation. Three major tasks are being undertaken to evaluate our proposed SCF extraction process. Task 1: Equilibrium solubility measurements for model F-T wax components in supercritical fluids at conditions representative of those in a SBC reactor. Task 2: Thermodynamic modeling of the measured VLE data for extending our results to real wax systems. Task 3: Process design studies of our proposed process. Additional details of the task structure are given