Fischer-Tropsch unit Germany

Horne, W. A., and Jones, J. P., Fischer-Tropsch Unit at Leipzig Gas Works, Leipzig, Germany, CIOS File XXVII-68 Item 30, PB 294 (1945). 

United States. Yet, even at such low consumption, domestic resources were inadequate Germany imported 85 percent of her petroleum. By 1939, fifteen synthetic petroleum plants were in operation. In 1944, twenty-two coal hydrogenation and Fischer-Tropsch plants converted coal into gasoline and other petroleum products. 

The Fischer-Tropsch process, as operated in Germany, produces normal paraffin wax also. These waxes melt in the range of 122° to 243° F. and the molecular size extends up to 150 carbon atoms (60). A United States plant employing iron catalyst does not expect to produce these. 

Development of the process in Germany was expedited when Ruhrchemie and I.G. Farbenindustrie pooled their facilities about 1940. Results of laboratoiy- and bench-scale operations led to the construction of a demonstration unit at Leuna employing a catalyst slurry in a continuous two-stage process with an output of metric tons of alcohds per day. The olefin feed was obtained by mild thermal cracking of soft paraffin wax from the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The product, a mixture of alcohols, was readily sulfonated to detergents, which were in great demand in... 

Reaction (3) was discovered by Fischer-Tropsch in 1923. The first plants which produced 200,000 tons of hydrocarbons were developed in Germany in 1936. The maximum production of hydrocarbons utilizing the Fischer-Tropsch method was achieved in Germany at the beginning of 1944 (ca 6,000,000 tons per year). After WWII, hydrocarbons were produced by this method in the United States (1948-1953) and in South Africa (from 1955). Owing to the rise in the price of oil after 1973, interest in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis increased. 

The Rectisol process was initially developed in Germany by Luigi GmbH. It was developed further Jointly with Linde AG (Kriebel, 1989) and is now offered by both firms. The major use of the process is in coal- and heavy oil-based facilities to produce ammonia, methanol, hydrogen, SNG, Fischer-Tropsch liquids, and 0x0 alcohols. In 1996 it was reported that more than 100 units were in operation or under construction (Lurgi Ol-Gas-Chemie GmbH and Linde AG, 1996). 

Hans Tropsch (1889-1935) A German chemist born in German Bohemia (now Czech Republic). From 1920 until 1928 he worked ai the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Coal Research both with Franz Fischer and Otto Roelen. in 1928 he became professor at the Institute for Coal Research in Prague. From 1931 until 1935, he worked in the United States at the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago. Owing to an illness he returned to Germany in 1935, where he died shortly after his arrival. 

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