Production of Synthetic Fuel from Coal and Biomass

Ceramatec is the prime contractor on a project for the US Department of Energy to produce a ~2 BPD Fischer Tropsch pilot plant.  The feedstock for the plant will be a mixture of coal and biomass with the objective of producing synthetic fuel with a carbon footprint that is below that of conventional petroleum based fuels.  Ceramatec is currently operating a small, ¼ BPD Gas-to-Liquids pre-pilot plant at its Salt Lake City, Utah facility.  The FT technology associated with this plant will be used as the basis for the CTL/BTL pilot plant.  The paper will describe the currently operating GTL facility and results related to catalyst and FT testing.  Further, the planned operation of the 2 BPD pilot facility will be described with the accompanying computer simulation of the pilot.