Spray dried iron catalysts for slurry phase Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.

Three catalysts of the same nominal composition (100 Fe/3 Cu/5 K/16 SiO2 in parts by weight) prepared by spray drying (using three different sources of silica) were studied and their attrition properties were determined. Spray dried catalysts were prepared from wet precursors and had excellent sphericity and smooth external surfaces. The catalytic performance of spray dried catalysts at the baseline process conditions was excellent. Synthesis gas conversion was between 71 and 76%, whereas methane selectivity was between 2.2 and 3.5% and that of C5+ hydrocarbons was between 78 and 86%. Catalyst productivities were 5-12% lower than that of precipitated (not spray dried) catalyst of the same composition, whereas hydrocarbon selectivities were similar. Spray dried CS catalyst (run SB-30702) had the most superior attrition strength but produced more light hydrocarbons than the other two spray dried catalysts. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AIChE Annual Meeting (San Francisco, CA 11/12-17/2006).

Spray dried iron catalysts for slurry phase Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Conference Paper