(621cj) A Novel Strategic Approach for the Optimal Design of Fischer-Tropsch Process

There has been significant interest in the development of technologies to convert fuels like natural gas and coal into more readily transportable liquid fuels. One of the technologies that have received much attention to produce liquid fuels is Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS). However, this process has not been fully commercialized yet, and there is much scope for further development especially in the area of reaction system and overall process configuration. In this work, for the F-T reaction system, both two-phase and three-phase kinetic models were developed, and the results were compared each other. The kinetic parameters were estimated via regression between the FTS kinitc model and the experimental data. A hybrid genetic algorithm was adapted to increase efficiency of the optimizaion for the kinetic parameters. Then, these optimized kinetic models were built into commercial process modeling software. Lastly, various F-T process design configurations were developed to maximize yield of gasoline and gas oil products.