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

Silica nanotubes (SNT) were synthesized with carbon nanotube (CNT) as a 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 503K and 1.0MPa and compared with that of SiO₂ supported ruthenium catalyst (Ru/SiO₂). The results indicated that ruthenium oxides can be completely reduced at 623K 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 SNT 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 SNT.