Alkali promoted molybdenum (IV) sulfide based catalysts, development and characterization for alcohol synthesis from carbon monoxide and hydrogen

For more than a century transition metal sulfides (TMS) have been the anchor of hydro-processing fuels and upgrading bitumen and coal in refineries worldwide. As oil supplies dwindle and environmental laws become more stringent, there is a greater need for cleaner alternative fuels and/or synthetic fuels. The depletion of oil reserves and a rapidly increasing energy demand worldwide, together with the interest to reduce dependence on foreign oil makes alcohol production for fuels and chemicals via the Fischer Tropsch synthesis (FTS) very attractive. The original Fischer-Tropsch (FT) reaction is the heart of all gas-to-liquid technologies; it creates higher alcohols and hydrocarbons from CO/H2 using a metal catalyst. This research focuses on the development of alkali promoted MoS2-based catalysts to investigate an optimal synthesis for their assistance in the production of long chain alcohols (via FTS) for their use as synthetic transportation liquid fuels. Properties of catalytic material are strongly affected by every step of the preparation together with the quality of the raw materials. The choice of a laboratory method for preparing a given catalyst depends on the physical and chemical characteristics desired in the final composition. Characterization methods of K0.3/Cs0.3-MoS2 and K0.3 /Cs0.3-Co0.5MoS2 catalysts have been carried out through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), BET porosity and surface analysis, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). Various characterization methods have been deployed to correlate FTS products versus crystal and morphological properties of these heterogeneous catalysts. A lab scale gas to liquid system has been developed to evaluate its efficiency in testing FT catalysts for their production of alcohols