Development of Carbon Supported Iron Catalyst for Liquid Fuel Production from Coal/Biomass Derived Syngas

Abstract

As the resources of crude oils are depleted and the environmental problems are increased due to the green houses gases emissions which are being damage the ozone layer. The worldwide researchers have concern to produce the alternative process for the production of chemicals and hydrocarbons form coal and biomass. The Fischer- Tropsch synthesis process provides the clean production of hydrocarbons from the mixture of hydrogen and carbon. All the production of hydrocarbons is free from sulfur content. Different kind of promoters and binders are commonly used in iron based catalyst in order to increase the selectivity of hydrocarbons. Potassium is used as a chemical promoter and silica and alumina are used as a structural promoter. Potassium has a variety of advantage; they increase the amount of alkenes in hydrocarbons production and suppress the formation of methane. There are several Fischer Tropsch synthesis plants which are currently producing liquid hydrocarbons all over the world to meet the human needs with a different proposed mechanism. Iron based catalyst is largely used due to his water gas shift activity and low cost and received a immense attention of researchers. Now a day carbons supported iron based catalyst are highly preferred due to his low cost and better C5+ selectivity of desire hydrocarbons. So first of all activated carbon are prepared by wet impregnation method to develop a carbon supported iron based catalyst. Different types of characterization technique are carried out to find out the properties such like Scanning electron microscopy is a technique which can be used to find out the structural properties of the crystal. X-ray diffraction (XRD) is the technique to find out the phase of an unknown crystalline material and also the information about the crystal shape and size. EDS was used for the elemental analysis and TGA gives the information about the thermal degradation of the material. Then prepared catalyst is run intoFischer Tropsch synthesis reactor to find out the production of gasoline. The carbon supported iron catalyst with potassium promoter increase the catalyst activity and selectivity toward the desire hydrocarbons. The highest quantity of C8 is much higher than the other hydrocarbons present in the product sample. The total percentage of different hydrocarbons in the mixture is (C5-C7) is 9% and (C8-C23) is 91%. Different types of promoter can also be used in order to increase the C5+ selectivity.