Help: Commonalities and differences between methanation catalysts and FT catalysts
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Synthetic ammonia is the hydrogenation of nitrogen, direct coal liquefaction is the hydrogenation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, FT is the hydrogenation and deoxygenation of carbon monoxide with chain elongation; iron is used as a catalyst in all these hydrogenation reactions. It is evident that iron plays a crucial role in catalytic hydrogenation. What is the difference between methanation catalysts and Ft catalysts?
There are many catalysts for hydrogenation reactions; non-precious metals such as iron and nickel are just a part of them. The key reason is that these hydrogenation catalysts are inexpensive, while in the petroleum refining industry, most hydrogenation catalysts are precious metals such as Pt, Ru, Rh, and Pd. What is the difference between methanation catalysts and FT catalysts? Firstly, their common feature is that both can enable the hydrogenation of CO (or CO2); the main difference lies in the length of the carbon chain of the products after hydrogenation. The methanation reaction is an extreme case of the FT synthesis reaction, in which the carbon chain growth factor is very small; therefore, the product after hydrogenation consists mainly of methane. Metals that can catalyze the FT synthesis reaction are generally considered to be Ni, Fe, Co, and Ru. When these metals are used for catalyzing FT synthesis, the chain growth factor of the product is Ni