CFD Study of Low Temperature Fischer-Tropsch Reactor in Jet Fuel Application

Fischer–Tropsch (FT) synthesis consists of hydrodynamic, chemical and thermal interactions. The optimal dimension of Fischer-Tropsch reactor is presented in this study. Drastic increasing temperature through FT reactor because of the high exothermic reactions nature, take place at the entrance region of the reactors. Temperature control is critical to the process of converting syngas to jet fuel. A steady-state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation has been developed to investigate the effect of each tube size and coolant flow rate on moderate temperature profile. Increasing in tube size causes the thermal runaway because of weak heat transfer flux. The syngas consumption rate was determined by Langmuir kinetic model and the coolant heat flux were estimated to reduce deviations from the pilot plant data.