Catalytic performance of iron oxide loaded on electron-rich surfaces of carbon nitride

Carbon nitride (CN) in CN encapsulated Ni/ Al2O3 (denoted as CN/Ni/Al2O3) catalyst was evidenced previously as a material in electron-rich state and possessed H-2-dissociative adsorption activity due to the electron doping effect from underlying nickel. In this report, iron oxide loaded on the CN/Ni/Al2O3 was synthesized and investigated by Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis to test the special effect of electron-rich support on the catalytic activity of iron oxide. The Fe/CN/Al2O3 and CN/Ni/Al2O3 samples were accordingly synthesized for comparison. In Fe/CN/Ni/Al2O3, the iron oxide was reduced to magnetite by syngas as evidenced by the in-situ XPS measurements and XRD pattern of used catalyst. Compared with Fe/CN/Al2O3, more light hydrocarbons over Fe/CN/Ni/Al2O3 were observed. It should be understood by the interaction between iron oxide and support mainly due to the effect of electron-rich state and thus enhanced H-2 adsorption ability. In addition, such a novel support facilitated the CO conversion and retarded the water-gas shift reaction and CO2 formation. The new type of adjustment on electronic state should be useful for novel catalyst design. (C) 2016 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.