2011 Volume 90 Issue 10 Pages 972-976
Ru catalysts were investigated for the synthesis of Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) fuels in a biomass-to-liquid (BTL) plant operation using biomass-derived syngas. Bio-syngas was produced from woody biomass in a BTL gasification plant, and H2/CO ratios of 0.8 and 2.2 maintained by a BTL water-gas shift reactor were used. With a bio-syngas feed, Ru/Mn/Al2O3 showed high catalytic activity, selectivity, and stability for F-T synthesis under the BTL plant conditions, whereas Ru/Al2O3 exhibited very poor performance. Characterization results revealed that the addition of a small amount of Mn to the Ru/Al2O3 catalyst influenced an increase in the concentration of the active Ru species on the catalyst surface, resulting in high catalytic performance for F-T synthesis. Under the BTL plant operation conditions (T = 550 K, P = 4 MPa, W/F = 1.5 g h/mol and H2/CO = 2.2), Ru/Mn/Al2O3 showed 87% CO conversion where the production rate of F-T fuels was about 17 L/d (1879 g/(kg h)) when using biomass-derived syngas.
