Evaluation and modeling of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis in presence of a Co/ZrO2 catalyst.

The present work focused on the application of response surface methodology (RSM), Box–Behnken design (BBD), for prediction of products distribution of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) using a Co/ZrO2 catalyst in a fixed bed reactor. The effect of four independent operating variables such as reaction temperature, pressure, space velocity and H2/CO ratio on the responses (CH4 and C5+ selectivities) in FTS were investigated. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed that the suggested quadratic models could well predict CH4 and C5+selectivities. The optimized operating condition was temperature 200.73 °C, pressure 20 bar, space velocity 1662.58 h−1 and H2/CO ratio 1.93. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]