Flame Spray Pyrolysis as fine preparation technique for stable Co and Co/Ru based catalysts for FT process

• Co and Co/Ru-based catalysts with 5%wt. Co, 10%wt. Co and 0.4%wt. Ru supported on SiO2 for the Fischer-Tropsch process have been synthesized by Flame Spray Pyrolysis (FSP).
• 5 wt% of Co sample did not show any activity toward the FT synthesis while 10%wt of Co and 10%wt of Co − 0.4%wt of Ru samples are suitable catalysts for GTL process.
• 10%wt sample showed a great stability in function of TOS at T = 250 °C in terms of reactants conversion and products selectivity.
• Products selectivity to CO2, CH4, light hydrocarbons (C7) remains essentially unchanged at different temperatures.

Flame spray pyrolysis (FSP) is an innovative and scalable technique, used to synthesize monometallic and bimetallic Co-Ru catalysts with 5% wt. Co, 10% wt. Co and 0.4% wt. Ru supported on SiO2 active in the Gas-to-Liquids (GTL)-Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, which converts syngas to hydrocarbons. The catalysts were characterized by TEM, FE-SEM-EDX, TPR, XRD and N2 adsorption/desorption. All the three samples have been tested in a fixed bed FT-bench scale plant. Results demonstrated that the 5% wt. Co catalyst was not active toward FT synthesis, while samples containing 10% wt. Co and 10% wt. Co - 0.4% wt. Ru were suitable candidates for the GTL-FT process. With an increase in temperature, the CO conversion increased, the product selectivity remained unchanged, and the 10% wt. Co catalyst showed higher stability as a function of time-on-stream (TOS) with respect to traditionally prepared materials. The addition of 0.4% wt. of Ru improved the performance in terms of CO conversion and C2+ yield.

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