Shell Oil Comapny

Franciscus Johannes Maria Schrauwen

Anne Boer

Gerrit Leendert Bezemer

Thomas Joris Remans

Gerardus Petrus Lambertus Niesen

Frederik Willem Hendrik Gimpel

The invention relates to a process for performing a Fischer Tropsch reaction in a reactor comprising at least two reactor tubes, a coolant chamber, and a gas distribution system below the coolant chamber, whereby at least two reactor tubes extend through the coolant chamber and one or more highly porous catalysts, said catalyst(s) having a size of at least 1 mm and comprising a porous body and a catalyst material, whereby the porous body has a porosity within the range of between 50 and 98 volume %.

Process for performing a fischer tropsch reaction

A process for facilitating the unloading of a fixed bed of cobalt/metal oxide catalyst particles from a reactor tube by (i) feeding a gas comprising 10 to 30 (vol/vol) percent of oxygen to the reactor tube with a GHSV for oxygen of 0.5 to 50 Nl/l/hr, and (ii) removing the catalyst particles from the reactor tube. In the fixed bed of catalyst particles to which the oxygen comprising gas is fed in step (i) at most 10 mole % of the element cobalt is present in Co3O4 and/or CoO, calculated on the total amount of moles of cobalt in the catalyst particles.

Process for catalyst unloading facilitation

The invention relates to a reactor for carrying out an exothermic process comprising a reactor shell, inlets for introducing reactants and coolant into the reactor shell, outlets for removing product and coolant from the reactor shell, at least two reactor tubes, a coolant chamber, and a gas distribution system below the coolant chamber, whereby at least two reactor tubes extend through the coolant chamber to enable fluid communication between the space below the coolant chamber and the space above the coolant chamber, said reactor comprising one or more highly porous catalysts, said catalyst(s) having a size of at least 1 mm and comprising a porous body and a catalyst material, whereby the porous body has a porosity within the range of between 50 and 98 volume %.

Reactor with gas distribution system in bottom

Disclosed is a removable cooling module (), for use in a reactor () for carrying out an exothermic reaction, comprising a coolant feed tube (); a distribution chamber (); a plurality of circulation tubes (); and a collection chamber (); said coolant feed tube () having at its first end an inlet (), for charging the coolant module () with coolant, and communicating with said distribution chamber () at its second end; each of said circulation tubes () communicating with the distribution chamber () through a first end and communicating with said collection chamber () through a second end; the collection chamber () having an outlet for discharging coolant. The modular nature of the invention facilitates removal of individual cooling module () from a reactor shell ().

Heat-exchanger for carrying out an exothermic reaction

A process for the synthesis of hydrocarbons in a three phase reactor comprising the steps of: (i) introducing synthesis gas into the reactor; (ii) causing the synthesis gas to be contacted with a Fischer-Tropsch catalyst; and (iii) removing products from the reactor, wherein step (i) comprises introducing some or all of the synthesis gas into the reactor at or near the bottom of the reactor; and step (ii) comprises contacting the synthesis gas with a catalyst structure immobilised within the reactor, wherein the catalyst structure comprises one or more porous catalyst elements fixable within the reactor, each of said porous catalyst elements being at least 1 cm, preferably at least 10 cm, in size and wherein the open volume within each porous catalyst element is at least 60% (with reference to the volume of the porous catalyst elements) and each porous catalyst element includes a Fischer-Tropsch catalyst material.

Catalyst structure

A sparger system () for a reactor () includes a feed pipe arrangement for feeding reactants to the spargers on the floor of the reactor, via a distribution system disposed above the spargers. The outlets () of the spargers are typically oriented towards the floor or parallel to it in order to eject gas or other reactants across the floor. This reduces settling of catalyst on the floor of the reactor, which improves mixing of the slurry and reduces the problems associated with uncontrolled reactions.

Growing community of inventors

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Franciscus Johannes Maria Schrauwen