Hydrocol

Natural Gas Upgrading via Fischer-Tropsch. In the United States, as in other countries, scarcities from World War II revived interest in the synthesis of fuel substances. A study of the economics of Fischer synthesis led to the conclusion that the large-scale production of gasoline from natural gas offered hope for commercial utiHty. In the Hydrocol process (Hydrocarbon Research, Inc.) natural gas was treated with high purity oxygen to produce the synthesis gas which was converted in fluidized beds of kon catalysts (42). 

Fluidized Catalyst Reactor. Two systems have been proposed, based on large scale operation of the Fischer-Tropsch process (to produce liquid hydrocarbons) at SASOL and at Carthage Hydrocol. The SASOL system was designed by M. W. Kellogg and has been operating for about 20 years (57, 58, 59, 60). 

The Carthage Hydrocol system was designed by Hydrocarbon Research it operated about 10 years before it was shut down in 1957. The... 

Figure 4. CO conversion in Hydrocol reaction for several reactor diameters. (From Volk et al., 1962.)...

Hydrocol Fused Fe Fixed fluidized bed 1951 Hydrocol, Brownsville, TX... 

After the Second World War a gas-to-liquids facility that employed an iron-based high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch (Fe-HTFT) process was constructed at Brownsville, Texas. The technology was developed by Hydrocarbon Research, Inc.,20 and the commercial facility was operated by the Carthage Hydrocol Company. The Hydrocol plant was in commercial operation during the period 1951-1957, and it was shut down mainly for economic reasons (the oil price was around US 2 per barrel at that time). 

The design aim of the Hydrocol refinery was to produce abetter than 80% yield of motor gasoline from the Fe-HTFT syncrude at a quality that would be acceptable for the market (MON of 80 after tetraethyl lead addition). The refinery design (Figure 18.2) addressed the issues specific to the Hydrocol Fe-HTFT syncrude ... 

Composition of the C3 and Heavier Gas and Oil Fractions from the Syncrude Produced by the Hydrocol Fe-HTFT Process... 

RON and MON of the Hydrocol Fe-HTFT Syncrude before and after Upgrading over Bauxite, and with Different Levels of Tetraethyl Lead (TEL) Addition... 

Selected Properties of Hydrocol Fe-HTFT Distillate before and after Hydrogenation... 

Some important features of the Hydrocol refinery design that can be noted are ... 

The Arge Fe-LTFT syncrude (Table 18.8)29 was much heavier than the syncrude of the two German Co-LTFT processes (Table 18.2). The Arge Fe-LTFT syncrude exemplified a high a-value Fischer-Tropsch product with a significant linear paraffinic wax fraction. The syncrude (Table 18.8) from the Kellogg Fe-HTFT synthesis was very similar in carbon number distribution to that of Hydrocol Fe-HTFT synthesis (Table 18.5). 

When comparing the refined motor gasoline and diesel fuel produced in the Hydrocol Fe-HTFT refinery (Tables 18.6 and 18.7) with those obtained from the original Sasol 2 and 3 Fe-HTFT refinery (Table 18.9), there is surprisingly little difference in quality. The crude oil refining approach followed for Sasol 2 and 3 resulted in a more complex and costly refinery design to achieve essentially the same product quality as the Hydrocol refinery. 

Hydrocol A process for making gasoline from natural gas. Partial combustion with oxygen yields syngas, which is catalytically converted to gasoline in a fluidized bed containing an... 

Ganzevles, R.A., Cohen Stuart, M.A., van Vliet, T., de Jongh, H.H.J. (2006). Use of polysaccharides to control protein adsorption to the air-water interface. Food Hydrocoll-oids, 20, 872-878. 

Table I. Data for Hydrocol Pilot Plant Operation...

To illustrate generically the integrated Hydrocol process, Figure 9 has been included. 

Another field in which azeotropic distillation is finding application is in the separation of the complex mixtures of organic acids, aldehydes, ketones, and alcohols produced by the Hydrocol process. As petroleum stocks are utilized more and more for the production of chemicals, processing of azeotropic mixtures and the use of azeotropic separations should assume increasingly greater importance. 

Chakraborty, B. K. and Hansen, P. M. T. 1971. Electron microscopy of protein/hydrocol-loid interacting systems. J. Dairy Sci. 54, 754. 

---