DISCUSSION WITH DR. C.C. HALL
FUEL RESEARCH BOARD
The work of the Fuel Research Board on the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is concerned with fixed bed, fluidized bed, and slurry operations. In all work, the ratio of H2 to CO in the feed gas is 2:1. This ratio had been used in studies with cobalt catalysts and was retained so that comparisons of different processes could be made at the same H2:CO ratio. Hall realizes that it is desirable to use lower H2:CO ratios in processes based on synthesis gas from coal and he plans to study such gases in future work. Cobalt catalysts were in the early work end in mechanism studies, but in process development work iron catalysts have been used exclusively. Both fused and sintered catalysts have been studied but no work has been done on precipitated iron catalysts.