Wensheng Ning and Muneyoshi Yamada

Abstract Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis is an effective method to produce liquid fuels from biomass. This chapter reports the study on precipitated Fe catalysts for conversion of CO2-containing syngas to liquid fuels. The influences of promoter Zn, K, and Cu on CO2 activation were analyzed by CO2 temperature-programmed — desorption (CO2-TPD). Cu has no strong effect to activate CO2. K increases mainly CO2 adsorption and is inferior to Zn in producing CO. The catalysts with high Zn/K ratio or low K content possess desorbed CO peak around 930 K in CO2-TPD and decreased CO2 selectivity resulted from CO2 addition in FT synthesis. The Fe catalyst with high Zn/K ratio shows high C2+ hydrocarbon selectivity for CO2 hydrogenation, too. It indicates that the CO2 contained in syngas is able to be activated by suitable promoter(s) for hydrocarbon synthesis at low temperature. The correlation between promoter composition and catalyst reactivity found for SiO2-free Fe catalysts is effective for SiO2-added Fe catalysts.

1 Introduction

The combustion-engine-based transportation system demands liquid fuels worldwide. Crude oil is currently the main source for liquid fuels; however, its reserve is limited. At the same time, the consumption of fuels generates significant pollutants that are damaging the environment. New technologies which can supply environmental — friendly fuels are required to overcome the above problems.

W. Ning (*)

College of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Chaowang Road 18#, Hangzhou 310032, China e-mail: wenshning@sohu. com

M. Yamada

Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Aoba 6-6-07, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8579, Japan

J. W. Lee (ed.), Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-3348-4_14, 225

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013