Alcohol Synthesis from CO/H2 Over Alkali-Promoted Transition Metal Sulfide Catalysts

Gas-to-liquid (GTL) technology is a process that converts a mixture of H₂ and CO known as “syn-gas” into longer chain intermediate products such as fuel and petrochemicals. This process is commonly referred to as the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis. All of the gas-to-liquid technologies are based on the original FT reaction that requires the use of a metal catalyst to create higher hydrocarbons and alcohols from syn-gas. Currently, collaborative research efforts at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC) are geared toward the development of catalyst based technologies to enhance the fraction of product stream relevant to aviation, space and other forms of liquid transportation fuels. Our objective is to synthesize alkali-promoted transition metal sulfide (TMS) catalysts to aid in the production of alcohols from synthesis gas (CO + H₂).