SECTION I(b)
(12) “Static Liquid Phase” Rheinpreussen.
(a) Ruhrchemie.
Ruhrchemie had some work on liquid phase operation early in the war. The work apparently had not reached the stage of large scale pilot plant operation. A patent had been applied for operation in liquid phase on 10 March 1941.
According to this claim the operation was to be carried out by passing the feed gas through a catalyst slurry. RCH considered it essential to operate at high space velocity, about 200-700 V/H/V. Under these conditions the conversion was around 50%. This led to the use of a multistage process. The conversion was in fact governed by the amount CH4 formed in the synthesis. A maximum of 1% CH4 formation was to be allowed in each stage.
The underlying thought is the assumption that in all liquid phase operations the higher boiling products are in danger of being cracked due to the much longer contact with the catalyst. Not enough practical experience on liquid phase operation is available as yet to study this effect.]
Another RCH patent application dated 7 July 1941, was supposed to cover operations with liquid injections as means to remove the heat of reaction. This operation also is not new, but was not carried out in any large scale apparatus. The injected liquid is evaporated and the quantity used in such that the heat of reaction balances the latent heat of the injected liquid. It appears that the quantity of liquid required might be quite substantial and RCH visualized a stepwise operation with condensation between each stage.
No operating data on RCH liquid operation were obtained.