Patent ID: 6265451
Filing Date: 2001-07-24
Classification: B01J,B22F,C07C,C10G,C22C

Abstract:
A method for preparing a skeletal iron catalyst useful for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis processes, comprising the steps of:a) preparing a catalyst precursor metal alloy by providing iron powder together with non-ferrous metal powder selected from aluminum, antimony, silicon, tin or zinc sufficient to provide iron content of 20-80 wt. %, and adding 0.01-5.0 wt. % promotor metal powder selected from calcium, copper, chromium, magnesium, or potassium to provide a metal powder mixture; heating said metal powder mixture under inert gas protection while mixing said powders uniformly and melting the metal powders, then cooling the melted metal alloy to room temperature and pulverizing the resulting metal alloy to provide iron alloy precursor particles having 0.1-10 mm particle size;b) treating said iron alloy precursor particles by contacting the particles with NaOH or KOH caustic solution under hydrogen atmosphere and heating the mixture to 30-95.degree. C. temperature, while maintaining the treating conditions for 5-150 minutes and extracting and/or leaching out a major portion of the non-ferrous metal from the iron alloy particles which contain 40-90 wt. % iron, then washing the iron alloy particles with deionized water until pH=7, displacing the water with alcohol, and placing the resulting skeletal iron catalyst particles in ethanol; andc) pre-treating said skeletal iron catalyst particles by screening to provide 20-10,000 micron particle size and drying and reducing with hydrogen at high space velocity at 100-500.degree. C. temperature for 2-12 hours, then transferring the dried skeletal iron catalyst into water-free ethanol or liquid paraffin for storage.