Skeletal iron catalyst having improved attrition resistance and product selectivity in slurry-phase synthesis processes

Abstract

Particulate skeletal iron catalyst is provided which contain at least about 50 wt. % iron with the remainder being a minor portion of a suitable non-ferrous metal and having characteristics of 0.062-1.0 mm particle size, 20-100 m,/g surface area, and 10-40 nm average pore diameter. Such skeletal iron catalysts are prepared and utilized for producing synthetic hydrocarbon products from CO and H,feeds by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process. Iron powder is mixed with non-ferrous powder selected from aluminum, antimony, silicon, tin or zinc powder to provide 20-80 wt. % iron content and melted together to form an iron alloy, then cooled to room temperature and pulverized to provide 0.1-10 mm iron alloy catalyst precursor particles. The iron alloy pulverized particles are treated with NaOH or KOH caustic solution at 30-95° C. temperature to extract and/or leach out most of the non-ferrous metal portion, and then screened and treated by drying and reducing with hydrogen and to provide the smaller size skeletal iron catalyst material. Such skeletal iron catalyst is utilized with CO+H,feedstream for Fischer-Tropsch reactions in either a fixed bed or slurry bed type reactor at 180-350° C. temperature, 0.5-3.0 mPa pressure and gas hourly space velocity of 0.5-3.0 L/g Fe/hr to produce desired hydrocarbon products.