Highly active and stable iron Fischer-Tropsch catalyst for synthesis gas conversion to liquid fuels

A precipitated iron Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) catalyst (100 Fe/3 Cu/4 W16 SiO2 on mass basis) was tested in a stirred tank slurry reactor under reaction conditions representative of industrial. practice using CO-rich synthesis gas (260 degrees C, 1.5-2.2 MPa, H-2/CO = 2/3). Repeatability of performance and reproducibility of catalyst preparation procedure were successfully demonstrated on a laboratory scale. Catalyst productivity was increased by operating at higher synthesis pressure while maintaining a constant contact time in the reactor and through the use of different catalyst pretreatment procedures. In one of the tests (run SA-2186), the catalyst productivity was 0.86 (g hydrocarbons/g Fe/h) at syngas conversion of 79%, methane selectivity of 3% (weight percent of total hydrocarbons produced), and Csf hydrocarbon selectivity of 83 wt %. This represents a substantial improvement in productivity in comparison to state-of-the-art iron F-T catalysts. This catalyst is ideally suited for production of high-quality diesel fuels and C-2-C-4 olefins from a coal-derived synthesis gas.