Poisoning of a Silica-Supported Cobalt Catalyst due to Presence of Sulfur Impurities in Syngas during Fischer–Tropsch Synthesis: Effects of Chelating Agent

The effects of sulfur impurities on the performance of cobalt-based Fischer-Tropsch catalysts are evaluated under industrially relevant operating conditions of temperature, pressure, and impurity levels. Chelating agents (CAs) were used to modify the SiO2 support, and the performances of the CA-modified catalysts are compared with conventional Co/SiO2 catalysts. For both the Co/SiO2 and CA-modified catalysts, the presence of sulfur in the inlet syngas results in a notable drop in the CO conversion, an undesired shift in the hydrocarbon selectivity toward short-chain hydrocarbons, more olefins in the products, and lower product yields. In the post-poisoning stage, i.e., after termination of sulfur introduction in the inlet syngas, the CA-modified catalysts recover activity and selectivity (to some extent at least), whereas such trends are not observed for the base-case, i.e., unmodified Co/SiO2 catalyst. The improved performance of the CA-modified catalysts in the presence of sulfur is attributed to higher densities of active sites.