Enhanced Fischer-Tropsch synthesis performances of Fe/h-BN catalysts by Cu and Mn

Abstract A series of Fe/h-BN catalysts promoted with Cu or Mn were prepared for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS). The physicochemical properties, crystal structures and morphologies of the catalysts were characterized by N 2 physisorption, FT-IR, TPR, XPS, XRD, MES and TEM. It is found that iron oxide nanoparticles are highly dispersed on h-BN matrix due to the anchoring effect of surface defects and the accommodation of porous structures of h-BN. The characterization results indicate that strong interaction between iron oxide and h-BN is present on un-promoted catalyst, which endows the h-BN supported iron catalyst with stable properties under FTS conditions but severely retards reduction of the catalyst. The addition of Cu to Fe/h-BN can to some extent overcome the strong interaction by introducing more sites for dissociating H 2 . It is observed that Cu promoter can increase the reduction or carburization degree and thus enhance the FTS activity. The addition of Mn to Fe/h-BN can weaken the strong interaction by altering the electron structure of iron species. And the electron-rich Fe species are responsible for easy reduction and the enhanced FTS performance. Besides, a higher activity can be realized by co-adding Cu and Mn to the Fe/h-BN catalyst. These results suggest that the synergistic effect of Mn and Cu can largely improve the performance of Fe/h-BN catalyst without impairing the stability of the catalyst. The present study paves a way to tailor the performances of FTS catalysts with h-BN as support.