Creation and Study of a Model Cobalt Catalyst for High-Performance Fischer–Tropsch Synthesis Using Nonporous Carbon Fiber as a Support

A cobalt catalyst was manufactured using polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based carbon fiber as a support. The surface of the fiber was covered with thin layer of alumina before cobalt impregnation. The catalyst was studied by a number of physicochemical methods including low-temperature nitrogen adsorption, TPR, DTG, chromatography, electron microscopy (TEM and SEM) and thermal conductivity measurements. The properties measured were discussed along with data on the activity in Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. It was found that the catalyst after the synthesis becomes significantly different from the starting catalyst, mostly because of the deposition and accumulation of high-molecular products of the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. At the same time, in the steady-state mode, its catalytic parameters correspond to a high-performance granular catalyst based on graphite, which allows us to use the results obtained as a model for identifying the surface states of a porous catalyst of the new generation gas-to-liquid (GTL) process.