Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) research fellow, Dr Qingyuan Zheng, has published important insights into how Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) works in real industrial environments.
This key advance in understanding made by Dr Zheng, a Senior Research Associate at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, UK, has recently been published in high-impact factor journal Nature Catalysis.
FTS is a complicated but widely used heterogeneous catalytic process technology that converts resources, including biomass and CO2, into synthetic fuels and chemicals. Further development and optimisation of FTS is expected to significantly improve the efficiency and sustainability of liquid hydrocarbon production and is therefore a key research field for overcoming some of the huge challenges around reduction of energy and resource demand that society faces.
Dr Zheng was mentored by Marc-Olivier Coppens, FIChemE, Ramsay Memorial Professor of Chemical Engineering at University College London, UK. Professor Coppens declared the research completed during the IChemE Andrew Fellowship ‘an outstanding piece of work’, highlighting the elegant use of various nuclear magnetic resonance methods to provide unique insights on FTS ‘of great fundamental and industrial importance.’
Conventionally, due to the lack of experimental methods, the catalytic performance is estimated based on the product composition determined from the reactor exit. Dr Zheng’s real time magnetic resonance measurement of FTS under the industrial operating conditions of the reaction reveals that the product composition inside the catalyst pores substantially deviates from that at the reactor exit, suggesting that the catalyst works in a very different environment from that traditionally estimated.
Professor Coppens said: “It has been a very long-standing question on what the composition of wax was inside the pores and how it affected diffusion of hydrogen and the specific product distribution. The huge difference between even the average carbon number inside the pores and the one found from gas chromatography at the exit was important to establish and quantify. Impressive work. To have your results published in Nature Catalysis as a culmination of this research is, of course, the cherry on the cake.”
Alexandra Meldrum, IChemE Vice President (Learned Society), said: “I am delighted to congratulate Dr Zheng on his excellent research results. Chemical engineers have a critical role to play in helping to address our major global challenges. The IChemE Andrew Fellowship enables ground-breaking research that is directly applicable to making key industrial processes more sustainable. Supporting active research collaboration between academia and industry not only leads to research excellence like Dr Zheng’s, but also generates significant development in the field.”
