Study on products distribution of iron and iron–zeolite catalysts in Fischer–Tropsch synthesis

Abstract The dependencies of hydrocarbon product distributions of iron and physical mixture of iron–zeolite catalyzed Fischer–Tropsch synthesis on reaction conditions include: reaction temperature, reaction pressure, H 2 /CO feed ratios; space velocity and effect of zeolite presence have been investigated. The concept of two superimposed Anderson–Schulz–Flory distributions has been applied for the representation of the product distribution for both iron and iron–zeolite catalysts. Zeolite presence increased secondary reactions that include cracking of heavier products and light olefins oligomerization. Product distribution of iron–zeolite catalyst was comparable with iron catalyst at high space velocity, because the role of the zeolite on overall reaction declined. The results of the product distribution dependency on the reaction conditions over both iron and iron–zeolite catalysts showed that the average number of carbon decreases with H 2 /CO ratio increasing and the reaction temperature in product.