Poster presented at 53. Jahrestreffen Deutscher Katalytiker - GEATS, Weimar, virtuell, 11.-13.3.2020

Abstract
Due to its superior selectivity to oxygenates, its water-gas-shift activity and its eco-friendliness combined with low price-level, iron represents a promising catalyst metal to convert syngas into valuable chemicals like higher alcohols via low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis [1]. Usually, disadvantages of using iron like relatively low catalytic activity and unsatisfying product selectivity are addressed by adding promoting elements like potassium, copper or molybdenum. While potassium and molybdenum tend to increase alcohol selectivity and average chain length of the products, copper is expected to increase catalytic activity [2-4]. Since mutual affections of the individual promoting effects exist, a well-structured comparative study, based on design-of-experiments (DoE) principles was conducted. Triple promoted, precipitated Fe-K-Cu-Mo were synthesized and catalytically tested following a defined experimental schedule. The single effects and the mutual interdependencies of the promoting elements and their affection of the catalytic performance was subsequently evaluated by using an analysis-of-variance approach.