Abstract: A hydrocarbon synthesis process (10) includes feeding gaseous reactants (18) into a slurry bed (14), allowing the gaseous reactants (18) to react catalytically, thereby to form liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon products, and subjecting a product mixture comprising liquid product and catalyst particles in a filtration stage to filtration, by passing the liquid product through a filtering medium (30) to separate catalyst particles from the liquid product. The gaseous products are withdrawn (23) and cooled to form a multi-phase product which is separated to produce at least a hydrocarbon condensate stream (88) and a tail-gas stream (84). At least a portion of the hydrocarbon condensate stream (88) is treated (96) to remove oxygenated components therefrom, producing a backflush condensate. From time to time, the filtering medium (30) of the filtration stage is backflushed by passing the backflush condensate through the filtering medium (30).

Abstract: A hydrocarbon synthesis process (10) includes feeding gaseous reactants (18) into a slurry bed (14), allowing the gaseous reactants (18) to react catalytically, thereby to form liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon products, and subjecting a product mixture comprising liquid product and catalyst particles in a filtration stage to filtration, by passing the liquid product through a filtering medium (30) to separate catalyst particles from the liquid product. The gaseous products are withdrawn (23) and cooled to form a multi-phase product which is separated to produce at least a hydrocarbon condensate stream (88) and a tail-gas stream (84). At least a portion of the hydrocarbon condensate stream (88) is treated (96) to remove oxygenated components therefrom, producing a backflush condensate. From time to time, the filtering medium (30) of the filtration stage is backflushed by passing the backflush condensate through the filtering medium (30).

Abstract: Gaseous reactants (18) are fed into a slurry bed (14) of solid catalyst particles in a liquid. The reactants react as they pass upwardly through the bed, thereby forming liquid and gaseous products. In a primary filtration stage (30), the liquid product passes through a filtering medium having filtering openings, which have a controlling dimension of x microns, so that large catalyst particles greater than x microns are removed. A primary filtrate containing near-size and fine catalyst particles is subjected to secondary filtration (64) to remove near-size particles. A cake of catalyst particles forms on the filtering medium. The passage of liquid product through the filtering medium is interrupted, and the filtering medium is backflushed by passing secondary filtrate through it in a reverse direction, to dislodge the cake from the filtering medium.