Performance of silica-nanotube-supported ruthenium catalysts for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

Silica nanotubes (SNTs) were synthesized with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as the template and used as the support to prepare ruthenium-based catalyst by slurry impregnation method. The catalyst was characterized by N2 physisorption, XRD, H2-TPR and TEM; its performance in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) was evaluated in a fixed-bed reactor at 503 K and 1.0 MPa and compared with that of SiO2-supported ruthenium catalyst (Ru/SiO2). The results indicated that ruthenium oxides can be completely reduced at 623 K by H2. For the SNT-supported ruthenium catalyst (Ru/SNT), the ruthenium particles are mainly located inside the nanotubes and are still well dispersed on SNTs after H2 reduction. Compared with Ru/SiO2, the Ru/SNT catalyst exhibits higher activity in FTS because of the higher dispersion of ruthenium particles in SNTs.