Kinetic model discrimination for olefin and alcohol formation in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN) est un acteur majeur de la recherche et de la formation dans les domaines de l’énergie, du transport et de l’environnement. De la recherche à l’industrie, l’innovation technologique est au cœur de son action, articulée autour de quatre priorités stratégiques : Mobilité Durable, Energies Nouvelles, Climat / Environnement / Economie circulaire et Hydrocarbures Responsables.

Dans le cadre de la mission d’intérêt général confiée par les pouvoirs publics, IFPEN concentre ses efforts sur :

• l’apport de solutions aux défis sociétaux de l’énergie et du climat, en favorisant la transition vers une mobilité durable et l’émergence d’un mix énergétique plus diversifié ;
• la création de richesse et d’emplois, en soutenant l’activité économique française et européenne et la compétitivité des filières industrielles associées.

Partie intégrante d’IFPEN, l’école d’ingénieurs IFP School prépare les générations futures à relever ces défis.

Kinetic model discrimination for olefin and alcohol formation in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is competitive route for sustainable fuel production, especially when used in the e-fuel or biofuel chain. Optimization of operating conditions is yet crucial to minimize the cost of the whole process. Advanced reactor models, able to predict every rate of FTS products production in a wide range of conditions, have therefore been developed to be further used in optimization schemes. However, despite numerous kinetic studies, the prediction of olefins and oxygenate products distribution remains a challenge and deviations from experiments are still observed.

Description

Current FTS kinetic models, generally based on CO insertion mechanism or enol mechanism, are able to accuratly predict CO conversion rates and main products selectivities such as paraffins and methane selectivities. They, however, hardly describe the dependency of olefins and oxygenates on operating conditions. Several hypothesis have been proposed in the literature to explain this deviation, for example olefins reincorporation in the chain propagation or competitive adsorption of side products.

The main goal of this internship is to develop a reactor model able to describe the effect of operating conditions on olefins and oxygenate products distribution. For this task, a pilote-scale experimental dataset will be used, and different kinetic mechanisms and/or physical phenomena will be evaluated based on those data.

The work will be divided into the 3 following tasks:

• Conduct a literature review to select different mechanisms of olefins and oxygenates formation and identify physical phenomena which could affect their rate of production
• Implement corresponding kinetics schemes and physical laws into a pre-existing reactor model, and estimate associated parameters
• Perform a comparative study of the models ability to predict olefins and oxygenates distributions, and propose an innovative combination to accurately describe the dataset

Required profile

Chemical engineering training, interested in kinetic and mass/heat transfer modeling, experience in fortran or similar language programming

Additional information
- Duration of the internship : 6 months
- Workplace : IFPEN Lyon, Rond-point de l'échangeur de Solaize, 69360 Solaize
- Transport : public transportation / personal vehicle
- Paid internship 1150€/month (gross)