Oxford Catalysts Group/Velocys (Abingdon, U.K. and Plain City, Ohio; www.oxfordcatalysts.com) announced that the first commercial-scale microchannel Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) reactor has been successfully started up and is operating as expected at a client’s facility.
The reactor, with a nominal capacity of over 25 barrels per day (bpd), is expected to be run continuously for up to six months at the client’s facility. The reactor was transported to the client’s site during the first quarter of 2012 with the catalyst already loaded. Catalyst activation/reduction was performed at the client’s site under commercially relevant conditions and synthesis gas operations began last week. The client, an integrated energy company, is operating the reactor to provide detailed engineering
information for the design of commercial medium scale modular synthetic fuels plants that it plans to build on sites around the world.
Steve LeViness, Fischer-Tropsch ProductManager, Oxford Catalysts Group/Velocys said, “This has been a successful catalyst activation and start up, and we have completed the commissioning process. This demonstration is the culmination of significant catalyst and reactor scale-up efforts that have been ongoing for several years. The catalyst performance is in good agreement with our lab results, and we are very pleased with the unit’s performance so far."