Reversible and Irreversible Changes in Co Fischer-Tropsch Catalysts During Synthesis

2009 Spring Symposium

 
Stu­art Soled
Exxon Mobil Research and Engi­neer­ing Co.
Annan­dale, NJ 08801 USA


Abstract — With the resur­gent inter­est in Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch catal­y­sis, it is impor­tant to under­stand any cat­a­lyst changes that can occur dur­ing the syn­the­sis. In this pre­sen­ta­tion we report on three intrin­sic modes of deac­ti­va­tion that have been observed in stud­ies of exper­i­men­tal sup­port­ed Co cat­a­lysts. These include reversible sur­face oxi­da­tion, irre­versible mixed met­al oxide for­ma­tion, and cobalt par­ti­cle growth. Tech­niques to mon­i­tor these changes are pre­sent­ed as well as some hypothe­ses regard­ing the mech­a­nisms that are respon­si­ble for them.

Speaker’s Biog­ra­phy — Stu Soled received his Ph.D in chem­istry focused pri­mar­i­ly on x-ray crys­tal­log­ra­phy from Brown Uni­ver­si­ty in 1973. He then did 4 year of post-doc­tor­al work in sol­id state chem­istry both at Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and in France, focus­ing on the syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of nov­el oxide and sul­fide mate­ri­als. He has been at Exxon’s Cor­po­rate Research Labs for more than 28 years. His research inter­ests lie in the syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and eval­u­a­tion of nov­el cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als. He has worked exten­sive­ly on Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch chem­istry, sol­id acid and met­al catal­y­sis, and hydrotreat­ing. He is the coau­thor of more than 70 pub­li­ca­tions and 80 U.S. patents. He is cred­it­ed with the dis­cov­ery of the Neb­u­la cat­a­lyst and has worked on a joint Exxon­Mo­bil-Albe­mar­le team to bring it to com­mer­cial real­i­ty. Neb­u­la has been pro­duc­ing low sul­fur diesel fuels in over a dozen refin­ery units world­wide. He is the recip­i­ent of the New York Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Award, the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Frank Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship Award, the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety North­east Divi­sion Indus­tri­al Inno­va­tion Award and the ACS Heroes in Chem­istry Award.