Novel Design of an Integrated Pulp Mill Biorefinery for the ...

3.3.2.3 Reactors
A single-step gas phase process would generally require less equipment than multi-step
gas processes. However, a single-step gas-phase process would still suffer from a large reactor
exotherm due to the high net heat of reaction. Hence, it is necessary to remove reaction heat and
perform reaction temperature control properly in order to prevent a reduction of equilibrium
conversion and catalyst deactivation due to temperature rise. A slurry phase reactor is going to be
used in which the reaction is promoted by placing the synthesis gas in contact with the catalyst in
slurry in which the catalyst is suspended in a reaction medium. Because the heat capacity and
thermal conductivity of the reaction medium are both large, the reaction heat is absorbed by the
reaction medium and leveling of the temperature in the reactor is easy.
Figure 14: Concept of slurry phase rector (JFE Holdings, Inc).
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Figure 15: Conversion and selectivity as a function of H2/CO.
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