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Fischer-Tropsch process

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Fischer-Tropsch process

[¦fish·ər ¦trōpsh ‚präs·əs]
(chemical engineering)
A catalytic process to synthesize hydrocarbons and their oxygen derivatives by the controlled reaction of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Fischer-Tropsch process

The synthesis of hydrocarbons and, to a lesser extent, of aliphatic oxygenated compounds by the catalytic hydrogenation of carbon monoxide. The synthesis was discovered in 1923 by F. Fischer and H. Tropsch at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Coal Research in Mulheim, Germany. The reaction is highly exothermic, and the reactor must be designed for adequate heat removal to control the temperature and avoid catalyst deterioration and carbon formation. The sulfur content of the synthesis gas must be extremely low to avoid poisoning the catalyst. See Coal gasification

McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopedia of Engineering. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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The guests will receive an overview of the Pearl GTL effluent treatment plant that treats water using the Fischer-Tropsch process, and other alternative processes that secrete less pollution than traditional fossil fuels.
The guests will receive an overview of the Pearl GTL effluent treatment plant (ETP) that treats water using the Fischer-Tropsch process, and other alternative processes that secrete less pollution than traditional fossil fuels.
The Fischer-Tropsch process converts a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons.
Based on production, the market is segmented into Methanol to Gasoline (MTG) process, gasoline plus process, fischer-tropsch process. Based on Size, the market is categorized into small scale and large scale.
The basic technology was developed in Germany in the 1920s as a Fischer-Tropsch process named after its inventors.
Alternatively, solar thermochemical processes can produce carbon monoxide from carbon dioxide and hydrogen from water, or both can be produced from the solar steam reformation of methane, and the resulting gas mixture can be used to produce more conventional liquid fuels via the Fischer-Tropsch process. (That process is used today to make synthetic fuels, but the heat to drive the reactions comes from the combustion of a portion of the fossil fuel feedstocks.) Solar thermochemistry could plausibly produce a significant fraction of the world's transportation fuels in the long-term, as technological advancements continue increasing efficiencies and driving down costs.
South Africa and a few other places use the Fischer-Tropsch process to create much of their liquid hydrocarbons, with coal as the carbon source.
A Fischer-Tropsch plant has three stages: a gas reformer at the front; a refining unit at the back end (both which involve very conventional, well-understood technology); and a middle unit, a series of gas converters with catalysts that is the heart of the Fischer-Tropsch process. The gas reformer, the first stage, makes a "synthesis gas" (a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen) from natural gas.
This makes the method as versatile as the Fischer-Tropsch process that is already approved, but it requires much lower initial investment.
The current approach of converting natural gas to liquid fuels is through the Fischer-Tropsch process. This process, though proven, has many challenges due to high capital costs and low conversion efficiencies.
The topics include the development of catalytic processes from terpenes to chemicals, furan-based building blocks from carbohydrates, fats and oils as raw materials for the chemical industry, biomass-to-liquids by the Fischer-Tropsch process, and carbon dioxide as a valuable source of carbon for chemical and fuels.
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