Statistical investigation of macro kinetics for iron and cobalt based Fischer-Tropsch synthesis: Mechanistic and kinetic implications

Abstract Various reaction rate equations have been proposed for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) for both iron and cobalt based FTS catalysts, and recently one generalized kinetic model has been developed for the mentioned catalysts. In this paper the new rate equation based on generalized kinetic (REGK) and 35 previously proposed rate equations were statistically evaluated and investigated, based on a large number of gathered kinetic data points for iron and cobalt based FTS catalysts. Among all the previous equations it was found that only REGK has general applicability as well as minimum error. Statistical investigations indicated that CO dissociation cannot solely be direct for both iron and cobalt based FTS catalysts. Also it was found that the effect of H 2 and CO 2 inhibition is not significant for cobalt and iron based catalysts respectively. For iron catalyst, assumption of H 2 O as inhibitor was either not significant or not practical. In addition, it was demonstrated that water gas shift can directly affect FTS besides the effect on partial pressures. According to the obtained new results the generalized mechanism was further developed.