Superhydrophobic Surface Modification of a Co-Ru/SiO2 Catalyst for Enhanced Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis

Commercial silica support pellets were impregnated and calcined to contain cobalt oxide and ruthenium oxide for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS). The precatalyst pellets were split evenly into two groups, the control precatalyst (c-precat) and silylated precatalyst (s-precat), which were treated with 1H,1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorooctyltriethoxysilane (PFOS) in toluene. The samples of powderized s-precat were superhydrophobic, as determined by the water droplet contact angle (>150°) and sliding angle (<1°). Thermal analysis revealed the PFOS groups to be thermally stable up to 400 °C and temperature programmed reduction (TPR) studies showed that H2 reduction of the cobalt oxide to cobalt was enhanced at lower temperatures relative to the untreated c-precat. The two active catalysts were examined for their FTS performance in a tubular fixed-bed reactor after in situ reduction at 400 °C for 16 h in flowing H2 to give the active catalysts c-cat and s-cat. The FTS runs were performed under identical conditions (255 °C, 2.1 MPa, H2/CO = 2.0, gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) 510 h–1) for 5 days. Each catalyst was examined in three runs (n = 3) and the mean values with error data are reported. S-cat showed a higher selectivity for C5+ products (64 vs. 54%) and lower selectivity for CH4 (11 vs. 17%), CO2 (2 % vs. 4 %), and olefins (8% vs. 15%) than c-cat. S-cat also showed higher CO conversion, at 37% compared to 26%, leading to a 64% increase in the C5+ productivity measured as g C5+ products per g catalyst per hour. An analysis of the temperature differential between the catalyst bed and external furnace temperature showed that s-cat was substantially more active (DTinitial = 29 °C) and stable over the 5-day run (DTfinal = 22 °C), whereas the attenuated activity of c-cat (DTinitial = 16 °C) decayed steadily over 3 days until it was barely active (DTfinal < 5 °C). A post-run surface analysis of s-cat revealed no change in the water contact angle or sliding angle, indicating that the FTS operation did not degrade the PFOS surface treatment.