Study on the reaction mechanism and kinetics of CO hydrogenation on a fused Fe–Mn catalyst

Abstract

The kinetics of the CO hydrogenation reaction over a Fe–Mn fused catalyst was investigated in a fixed-bed micro-reactor under the following conditions: temperatures of 573–603 K, pressures of 1–15 bar, H₂/CO feed ratios of 0.7–3.4 and a space velocity of 4500 h⁻¹. A reaction rate equation for the supported Fe–Mn catalyst was derived on the basis of the Langmuir–Hinshelwood–Hougen–Watson and Eley–Rideal models. An activation energy of 105 ± 3.7 kJ mol⁻¹ was obtained for the best fitted model. In addition, the power-law equation model was also evaluated for the experimental data. According to the power-law model, the activation energy was obtained as 95.5 ± 2.5 kJ mol⁻¹. Furthermore, the effect of temperature on the reaction partial order was investigated with respect to the reactants, using four simple power law equations. Characterization of the catalyst was carried out using BET and XRD techniques.