Effect of nano-particle size on product distribution and kinetic parameters of Fe/Cu/La catalyst in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

Effects of nano-particle size on hydrocarbon production rates and distributions for precipitated Fe/Cu/La catalysts in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis were investigated. Nano-structured iron catalyst was prepared by micro-emulsion method. The concept of two superimposed Anderson-Schulz-Flory (ASF) distributions has been applied for the representation of the effects of reaction conditions and nano-particles size on kinetics parameters and product distributions. These results reveal that by reducing the particle size of catalyst, the break in ASF distributions was decreased. Also useful different kinetics equations for synthesis of C3 to C9 and C10 to C22 were determined by using α1 and α2 chain growth probabilities.