TITLE: Auger electron spectroscopy study of the activation of iron Fischer-Tropsch catalysts.

AUTHOR: 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],  1991,  11p.

NTIS ORDER NO.: DE92000796INW

NOTES: Direct liquefaction contractors' review meeting, Pittsburgh, PA (United States), 3-5 Sep 1991. Sponsored by Department of Energy, Washington, DC.

ABSTRACT:

Promoted iron catalysts are commonly used for Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis. Copper, potassium and silica are frequently employed as promoter species, either singly or in combination. The number of different iron catalyst formulations which have been investigated for F-T synthesis is enormous and there does not yet appear to be a general consensus as to the optimum catalyst composition. In addition, questions regarding the effects of variations in catalyst activation and reaction conditions are still open. Because of the large number of parameters involved in the development of F-T catalysts, a great deal of work remains to be done before the factors affecting catalyst performance are fully understood. In this paper one of these factors, namely the effects of variations in activation procedure on the surface composition of iron based F-T catalysts, will be investigated. Two different catalysts were studied. The first catalyst, with a composition of 100 Fe/5 Cu/4.2 K/25 SiO(sub 2) (parts by weight) whose little variation in activity procedure (1). The second catalyst (100 Fe/3 Cu/0.2 K) displays wide variations in activity with activation procedure (2). Surface compositions of these two catalysts were measured, after the activation treatments described above, using Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). It will be shown that the variations in catalyst activity observed by Bukur, et al. (1,2), correlate well with variations in surface composition, offering insights into the optimum conditions for catalyst activation. 9 refs., 6 figs.

REPORT  NUMBER: SAND-91-2007C;   CONF-9109211-4

CONTRACT  NUMBER: AC04-76DP00789