CO hydrogenation over zirconia supported iron catalysts promoted with rare earth oxides

Zirconia supported iron catalysts promoted with La2O3 and CeO2, respectively, are prepared by sequential impregnation method. It is shown that the structure, reduction behavior, and the catalytic property for CO hydrogenation of these catalysts are quite different from that of the unpromoted Fe/ZrO2 sample, and are influenced significantly by the kinds of promoter elements. For the Fe/La/ZrO2 sample, the catalytic activity is only a little bit higher than that of the Fe/ZrO2 sample, but light olefins selectivity increases and methane formation is suppressed. For the Fe/Ce/ZrO2 sample, the catalytic activity is much higher than that of the unpromoted Fe/ZrO2 sample, while methane formation is suppressed and light olefins selectivity slightly increases. The roles of different rare earth oxide promoters in these catalysts are discussed.