Performance of Bimetallic Fe and Co Catalyst Supported on HZSM-5 for Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis

Abstract

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is a polymerization reaction which produces various products such as paraffin, olefins, alcohols, and aldehydes. The purpose of this study was to determine the performance of Fe and Co bimetallic catalysts with the support of HZSM-5 for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. This study consists of two stages. The first stage was started by making a mesopore sized HZSM-5 catalyst through desilication, then impregnated with bimetallic Fe and Co which acted as a promoter. The impregnation method used was the incipient wetness impregnation. In the impregnation, process variations were made in the ratio of Fe to Co 1:9 and 2:8 metal loading was 10%. The Fe-Co catalyst / HZSM-5 was analyzed for characterization and activity tests. The characteristic tests were BET, XRD, FTIR, and EDX. The second stage was activity test of Fe-Co / HZSM-5 catalyst in the biofuel production process from syngas through Fischer-Tropsch reaction: The best performance catalyst was used for the biofuel production process. Fischer-Tropsch process was carried out in a fixed bed reactor, with an operating temperature of 200, 225, 250 °C carried out for 100 hours in one run, then analysis of product composition by GC-MS.