On Some Problems of Selectivity in Syngas Reactions on the Group VIII Metals

There are probably very few other systems in industrial chemistry which equal the CO/H2 reaction system in the variety of possible products. When using pure Ni or Co catalysts one can produce almost pure CH, or a mixture of saturated hydrocarbons; a promoted (K2O) iron catalyst produces, in addition to these products, also alcohols, aldehydes, and other oxygen-containing products (oxygenates); and almost pure CH3OH can be obtained when applying Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 or Pd-MgO promoted SiO2 catalysts. Some catalysts (Rh/V2O3) can lead the reaction of syngas toward C2-oxygenates, and others to a mixture of C2+-alcohols and aldehydes (Co, K, Cr, Fe multicomponent catalysts). All this is schematically shown in Fig. 1. It is a remarkable, but not unusual, situation that while the economic interest follows the order (Fig. 1) III > II > I, the fundamental knowledge on the reactions mentioned follows just the reverse order: I > II > III. Although the leading ideas for preparing selective catalysts are onIy slowly emerging from the experimental material published recently, it nevertheless seems appropriate to review the preliminary information already available on the selective behavior of various group VIII metals.