DEVICE AND PROCESS FOR PRODUCING LIQUID AND, OPTIONALLY, GASEOUS PRODUCTS FROM GASEOUS REACTANTS

摘要

A process for producing liquid and gaseous products from gaseous reactants. The process includes a) feeding a synthesis gas stream of mainly carbon monoxide and hydrogen, as gaseous reactants, into a slurry bed of solid Fischer-Tropsch catalyst particles suspended in a suspension liquid, with the slurry bed being provided in a reaction zone, b) allowing the gaseous reactants to react, by means of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, as they pass upwardly through the slurry bed; c) withdrawing liquid phase from the slurry bed, to maintain the slurry bed at a desired level; d) allowing gaseous products and unreacted gaseous reactants to disengage from the slurry bed and to pass upwardly as a gas phase into a freeboard zone of a head space above the reaction zone; e) subjecting the gas phase to distillation; f) returning separated catalyst particles and liquid phase from the distillation zone and g) withdrawing treated gas phase from the head space.