Natural gas is reacted with steam, to generate carbon monoxide and hydrogen in a first catalytic reactor (16); the resulting gas mixture is used to perform Fischer-Tropsch synthesis in a second catalytic reactor (26). After cooling the resulting gas stream in a heat exchanger (29), the remaining gas stream (30) is cooled a second time by decreasing its pressure (32), and the resulting condensed liquid is separated (33) from the remaining gas phase. This increases the production of condensate. The second cooling step may utilise a turbine (32), or a vortex tube (40), or a throttle valve.
展开▼
