Highly Selective FT Synthesis for Production of JP-8 Jet Fuel from Coal and Coal/Biomass Mixtures

An indirect liquefaction process employing advanced process intensification approaches is being developed to reduce costs and accelerate commercialization of a coal to liquid (CTL) process for converting coal and coal-biomass mixtures to JP-8 jet fuel. In this Air Force and DOE/NETL sponsored cooperative agreement, Southern Research is leading a team consisting of IntraMicron, Inc., Southwest Research Institute, and Nexant, Inc., along with Chevron as selective Fischer-Tropsch (FT) catalyst supplier and the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) as the host site. The process reduces the number of parasitic syngas cleaning steps and eliminates costly upgrading of wax produced in conventional indirect liquefaction processes, resulting in improved economics and lower lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for CTL-based jet fuel production. These improvements directly reduce capital costs of indirect CTL processes, resulting in significantly improved economics and cost competitiveness of CTL when compared to petroleum refining. Specific objectives for FT experiments are to demonstrate a selective and active second generation cobalt-zeolite hybrid Fischer-Tropsch (FT) catalyst from Chevron that predominantly produces liquid range C5-C20 hydrocarbons with high productivity (5X conventional FT catalysts) and jet fuel selectivity while eliminating the production and associated handling of solid C21+ wax. In fall of 2015, Southern operated a bench-scale FT reactor with a 2” diameter heat exchange reactor tube using IntraMicron technology in a nominal 5 gallons per day skid-mounted fixed-bed installed at NCCC. In those experiments, both productivity and selectivity goals were achieved during a 300 hour experiment. Another experiment has just been completed in spring 2017 with the reactor diameter increased to 4”. This work will compare the results from the two long-term tests of the hybrid FT jet-selective catalyst using the skid-mounted fixed-bed FT reactor system at NCCC.