Mathematical modeling and evaluation of permeation and membrane separation performance for Fischer–Tropsch products in a hydrophilic membrane reactor

Abstract A mathematical model was constructed to estimate the performance of an MFI-membrane reactor used for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis to produce a mixture of liquid hydrocarbons. In order to accurately evaluate the reactor’s performance a parametric study was performed. Under certain operational conditions, such as the total initial pressure in the reaction zone (1–4 MPa) and the hydrogen/carbon monoxide ratio (H2/CO: 1 to 2) on the performance of the studied reactor. The selectivity (productivity) of the hydrocarbon products (S i ), the quantity of hydrocarbons permiated (θ i ) and the separation factors of each space (α i ) were predicted. With increasing pressure, it is observed that θ CO and θ H 2 ${\theta }_{{H}_{2}}$ are decreasing from 0.62 to 0.45 and from 0.55 to 0.49 respectively. However, as the H2/CO ratio rises, this measurement shows a slight increase. Aside from, the separation factors of the majority of the current species are unaffected by the H2/CO ratio increasing, while the separation factors of carbon monoxide and hydrogen are increasing. Similarly the selectivity of water, methane, carbon dioxide and ethane increases with increasing H2/CO ratio. Based on these findings it is revealed that the membrane can enable permeability for all species present in the products mixture with varying separation factors, and that the ability to separate species other than water from the reaction side is essentially non-existent.