A highly active and stable Fe-Mn catalyst for slurry Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

A highly stable and active Fe-Mn catalyst for slurry Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) was prepared and scaled up for the application in the industrial pilot plant at Institute of Coal Chemistry (ICC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). One Lab-scale catalyst and one scaled-up catalyst are introduced in the present paper. The particle size of the Lab-scale catalyst is about 5-15 μm, while it is increased to 30-90 μm for the scaled-up catalyst. Simultaneously, the morphology of the catalyst was greatly improved after the catalyst being scaled up. Both the Lab-scale and scale-up catalysts show high FTS activity. CO conversion of the Lab-scale catalyst and the scaled-up one are over 70.0% (H2/CO = 0.67, 275 °C, 1.5 MPa and 3000 h−1) and 55.0% (H2/CO = 0.67, 260 °C, 1.5 MPa and 2000 h−1), respectively. The catalysts also possess excellent stability, no obvious deactivation was observed during stable run of 4200 h and 1200 h on stream for the two catalysts. However, the Lab-scale catalyst produced more methane (about 8-10 wt%) and C2-4 (22-30 wt%) and less C5+ hydrocarbon (55-70 wt%). Meanwhile, the hydrocarbon distribution of the catalyst was greatly improved for after the catalyst being scaled up, and the distribution of hydrocarbon products become much preferable. The selectivity to methane was well controlled at about 5 wt%, and the sum of C2−4 and C5+ was increased to 91-93 wt%. On the whole, the scaled-up catalyst satisfies the requirements of the application for FTS in the industrial pilot plant of slurry bubble column reactor (SBCR) at ICC, CAS.