Studies on Promotion Mechanism of CeO2 in Co-CeO2/SiO2 Catalyst for Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis Using D2 Pulse Reaction

The role of the promoter CeO2 in the Co-CeO2/SiO2 catalyst for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) was investigated by means of the D2 pulse reaction. The D2 pulse reaction results over Co-CeO2/SiO2 and Co/SiO2 catalysts showed that the addition of CeO2 increased the catalytic activity of Co/SiO2 for the H-D isotopic exchange and the reactivity of H from Si-OH for CO hydrogenation. The addition of CeO2 increased the total amount of active carbon species on the surface of Co/SiO2 and made the chain growth unit -CH2- dominating, which consequently increased the FTS reactivity and chain growth possibility. The addition of CeO2 into Co/SiO2 also improved the hydrogenation reactivity of carbon atoms on the surface of Co-CeO2/SiO2, which led to a decrease in carbon deposition.