Enhancment of Fischer-Tropsch Products Over Iron-Based Catalyst By Using Different Preparation Method

In  the  GTL  process, Fischer–Tropsch  synthesis  (FTS)  plays  an  important  role  for  converting  synthesis gas (mixture of CO and H₂) in  the  production  of  ultra-clean  transportation  fuels,  chemicals,  and  other  hydrocarbon  products. The development of an effective catalyst and reactor system is the most competitive issue in FTS. Three Fe-Mn/Al₂O₃ catalysts were prepared by three different preparation techniques, i.e. co-precipitation; sol-gel and impregnation, and their Fischer–Tropsch Synthesis (FTS) activity and selectivity behavior were investigated and compared using a fixed-bed reactor. It was observed that the impregnated catalyst had the lowest initial activity but was more stable than the other catalysts. The co-precipitated and sol-gel catalysts showed enhanced light olefin production as compared with the impregnated. Methane selectivity decreased with TOS for both the impregnated and co-precipitated catalysts while it increased for the sol-gel. The impregnated catalyst showed the lowest WGS activity, the highest hydrocarbon selectivity and the highest chain growth probability.