Synthesis and characterization of Al-modified SBA-15 for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) reaction

In this work, we synthesized a Co-based catalyst supported on modified SBA-15 to obtain the uniform particle size of active metal and selective products with certain carbon number distribution. For the comparison, modified SBA-15 was prepared with the different molar ratios of Si/Al = 5, 7 and 10 and compared with the SBA-15 support. Catalysts were prepared by the impregnation method and prepared catalysts were characterized by various analytical techniques such as N₂ physisorption, XRD, SAXS, TPR, NH₃-TPD, FT-IR, and TEM. It was found that, by adding the aluminum to SBA-15, the catalyst acid site was increased and it produced a relatively middle range of hydrocarbons. It was also found that the interaction between cobalt metal and the support was increased, affecting the catalyst activity for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.