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 The gaseous products are withdrawn (23) and cooled to form a multi-phase product which is separated to produce at least a hydrocarbon condensate stream (88) and a tail-gas stream (84).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 The gaseous products are withdrawn (23) and cooled to form a multi-phase product which is separated to produce at least a hydrocarbon condensate stream (88) and a tail-gas stream (84).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).