Construction of Synergistic Fe₅C₂/Co Heterostructured Nanoparticles as an Enhanced Low Temperature Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis Catalyst

Iron and cobalt catalysts are two major categories for commercial Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) catalysts. The two types of catalysts have distinct merits and shortcomings while they are largely supplementary to each other. However, until now, there has been a lack of an efficient way to properly combine those two catalysts into a synergistic one which possesses the benefits of both catalysts. Herein, the Fe₅C₂/Co heterostructured nanoparticles (NPs) were constructed by a secondary growth strategy, where the Fe/Co molar ratio can be tuned from 3.3 to 25. Based on the FTS reaction evaluation, we observed that only with 0.6 wt % Co (Fe/Co = 12) incorporated, the Fe₅C₂/Co catalyst exhibits an activity four times higher than that of pure Fe₅C₂ catalyst at low temperature. In this catalyst, Co was responsible for the CO dissociation while Fe₅C₂ was responsible for the chain growth at 220 °C. The synergistic effect of both sites may lead to enhanced performance in FTS reaction. This result provides a perspective for the construction of Fe-Co bimetallic FTS catalysts. (Graph Presented).