TITLE: Exploratory program for using hydrous metal oxide ion exchangers as Fischer-Tropsch catalysts.

AUTHOR: A. W. Lynch;   R. G. Dosch;   A. G. Sault.

INST.  AUTHOR: Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM.

SPONSOR: Department of Energy, Washington, DC.

LANGUAGE: English

PUB.  TYPE: Technical Report

PUB.  COUNTRY: United States

SOURCE: Department of Energy [DE],  1990,  18p.

NTIS ORDER NO.: DE91002341INW

NOTES: Indirect liquefaction contractors review, Pittsburgh, PA (USA), 5-8 Nov 1990. Sponsored by Department of Energy, Washington, DC.

ABSTRACT:

The purpose of this program is to investigate the potential of hydrous metal oxide (HMO) ion exchangers, invented at Sandia National Laboratories, as Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) catalysts. Metals known to be active in F-T synthesis (e.g. Fe, Co) were ion exchanged on hydrous metal oxide supports. Although HMO catalysts based on Zr, Nb, and Ta have been investigated in direct coal liquefaction studies, this effect focused on formulations based on the hydrous titanium oxide (HTO) system. The program has the goals of developing a catalyst with (1) high activity, (2) selectively to fuel range or other useful products, and (3) better properties for use in slurry reactors. The program has three main tasks: (1) catalyst synthesis, to develop methods for preparing catalysts having desirable F-T properties, (2) characterization, to investigate catalysts proving to have desirable properties by a variety of analytical techniques to determine correlations between activity and material properties and (3) testing to determine activity and selectivity of catalysts. This paper discussed results of activity testing of Ruhrchemie catalyst and some catalyst formulations prepared using ion exchange on hydrous titanium oxide and precipitation. For example, at 250(degree)C the Ruhrchemie catalyst converts (approximately)50% of the syngas feed to reaction products. In comparison, iron catalysts prepared by ion exchange and  precipitation had conversions ranging from 20 to 50% over a temperature range of 250 to 275(degree)C of the syngas feed. In addition, results are Auger surface analysis of Ruhrchemie catalyst are presented. 6 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs.

REPORT  NUMBER: SAND-90-2553C;   CONF-901120-1

CONTRACT  NUMBER: AC04-76DP00789