Production of green fuels using novel catalyst via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis: catalyst preparation and characterisation of iron and cobalt on calcium support

Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis is a process where syngas is converted into larger hydrocarbon structure. The process had played an important role after the rise of the petroleum price and the current outlook of the global oil and gas resources. In Malaysia, FT technology was implemented as early from 1993 by Shell Gas in Bintulu. The current studies of the FT synthesis cover a wide range of catalyst support, but limestone was not yet tested as the one of them. The prospect of this study is to see the suitability of calcium-based catalyst loaded with common metal catalyst used in FT technology (Fe and Co) to see the rate of conversion in term of its effectiveness with reference to CaO and its capacity as catalyst support. The catalyst will be prepared using precipitation method and had been analyzed with TGA, XRD, BET, TEM, FESEM and TPR/TPO. From overall analysis, the CaO provides the best result from BET, while from XRD, TEM and FESEM it can be notified that the catalyst has carbon deposition, water deposition and traces of sulphur for Co/CaO. The scopes of the objectives are achieved and the experiment should proceed to part B, which is the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of the catalysts.