HIGH FISCHER TROPSCH SYNTHESIS PERFORMANCE BY IRON-BASED OVER SBA-16 CATALYSTS

The increasing global energy demand associated with environmental issues, has led to the society seeking to sustainable processes. The Fisher Tropsch Synthesis (FTS) has been representing a clean alternative for biofuels production, contributing to meet future energy needs and minimize greenhouse gas emissions (mainly CO2). Iron catalysts have been widely studied in FTS by several research groups because they are low cost, highly abundant, effective under different process conditions (temperature, pressure and H2/CO ratio) and more suitable for low-H2 synthesis gas (such as those obtained from biomass or charcoal). However, this active phase is poorly selective for a certain range of hydrocarbons and has high selectivity for CH4 and CO2. In this context, the present study proposes to evaluate the conversion and catalytic selectivity of the synthesis gas into liquid hydrocarbons, through SFT, using the mesoporous molecular sieve SBA-16 containing iron. The Fe/SBA-16 catalyst, no article in the literature, showed excellent activity in the FTS, providing greater selectivity to gasoline (⁓ 74.3%) and low CO2 production. Thus, this study opens a new path to produce biofuels from more selective industrial catalysts.