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

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.