Size and Promoter Effects on Stability of Carbon-Nanofiber-Supported Iron-Based Fischer–Tropsch Catalysts

/CO = 1). Upon addition of sodium and sulfur promoters to iron nanoparticles supported on carbon nanofibers, initial catalytic activities were high, but substantial deactivation was observed over a period of 100 h. In situ Mössbauer spectroscopy revealed that after 20 h time-on-stream, promoted catalysts attained 100% carbidization, whereas for unpromoted catalysts, this was around 25%. In situ carbon deposition studies were carried out using a tapered element oscillating microbalance (TEOM). No carbon laydown was detected for the unpromoted catalysts, whereas for promoted catalysts, carbon deposition occurred mainly over the first 4 h and thus did not play a pivotal role in deactivation over 100 h. Instead, the loss of catalytic activity coincided with the increase in Fe particle size to 20-50 nm, thereby supporting the proposal that the loss of active Fe surface area was the main cause of deactivation.