Process for separating a catalyst from a liquid

Abstract

Gaseous reactants () are fed into a slurry bed () of solid catalyst particles in a liquid. The reactants react as they pass upwardly through the bed, thereby forming liquid and gaseous products. In a primary filtration stage (), the liquid product passes through a filtering medium having filtering openings, which have a controlling dimension of x microns, so that large catalyst particles greater than x microns are removed. A primary filtrate containing near-size and fine catalyst particles is subjected to secondary filtration () to remove near-size particles. A cake of catalyst particles forms on the filtering medium. The passage of liquid product through the filtering medium is interrupted, and the filtering medium is backflushed by passing secondary filtrate through it in a reverse direction, to dislodge the cake from the filtering medium.