Abstract:
The K-Fe
3O
4 and Ni-AlMCM-41 catalysts were first prepared by a solvothermal and ion-exchange methods, respectively; they are then assembled to K-Fe
3O
4/Ni-AlMCM-41 tandem catalyst for CO
2 hydrogenation to long-chain hydrocarbons. The catalyst samples were characterized in detail by means of XRD, SEM, TEM, NH
3-TPD, olefin-TPD, ICP-OES, XRF and XPS; the effect of potassium modification and Si/Al ratio on the performance of Fe
3O
4/Ni-AlMCM-41 tandem catalyst in the hydrogenation of CO
2 was investigated. The results illustrate that the Fe
3O
4 component has a uniform spherical particles in the size range of 400–800 nm, whilst the Ni-AlMCM-41 component displays mesoporous structure, dominantly with weak acid sites on the surface. CO
2 is first converted to gaseous products rich in light olefins over the K-Fe
3O
4 catalyst and the light olefins is then transformed to long-chain hydrocarbons by a series of oligomerization and hydrogenation reactions over the acid sites of Ni-AlMCM-41. Appropriate content of potassium can improve the selectivity to light olefins over the Fe
3O
4 catalyst in the first stage. In particular, for CO
2 hydrogenation under 2 MPa and with a space velocity of 1000 h
−1 and a H
2/CO
2 ratio of 3, when 0.5%K-Fe
3O
4 (320 °C) is connected with Ni-AlMCM-41(Si/Al = 50) (250 °C), the conversion of CO
2 reaches 32.9% and the selectivities to CO, CH
4, and long-chain hydrocarbons are 7.1%, 10.9% and 49.8%, respectively. That is, the selectivity to long-chain hydrocarbons over the K-Fe
3O
4/Ni-AlMCM-41 catalyst (49.8%) is much higher than that over the single K-Fe
3O
4 catalyst (12.2%).