Fischer-Tropsch catalysis, mechanistic

At the Mellon Institute he applied l4C tracers to examine the behavior of intermediates in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis over iron catalysts. By adding small amounts of radioactively labeled compounds to the CO/H2 synthesis gas mixtures, he was able to prove that some of these compounds (e.g., small alcohols) are involved in the initiation step of the chain growth process that leads to larger hydrocarbon products. It was during this era that his associates first placed a catalytic reactor into the carrier gas stream of a gas chromatograph and developed the microcatalytic pulse reactor, which is now a standard piece of equipment for mechanistic studies with labeled molecules. While at Mellon Institute Emmett began editing his comprehensive set of seven volumes called Catalysis, which he continued at Hopkins. 

Third, and not least, the mechanistic features of the Fischer-Tropsch hydrocarbon synthesis mirror a plethora of organometallic chemistry. More precisely Molecular models have been invoked that could eventually lead to more product selectivity for eq. (1). Although plausible mechanistic schemes have been considered, there is no way to define precisely the reaction path(s), simply because the catalyst surface reactions escape detection under real process conditions (see Section 3.1.1.4). Nevertheless, the mechanism(s) of reductive hydrocarbon formation from carbon monoxide have strongly driven the organometallic chemistry of species that had previously been unheard of methylene (CH2) [7-9] and formyl (CHO) [10] ligands were discovered as stable metal complexes (Structures 1-3) only in the 1970s [7, 8]. Their chemistry soon explained a number of typical Fischer-Tropsch features [11, 12]. At the same time, it became clear to the catalysis community that molecular models of surface-catalyzed reactions cannot be... 

Far more than 5000 patents have been filed on the subject of the Fischer-Tropsch hydrocarbon synthesis since it was discovered 75 years ago. A quite reliable mechanistic picture is now available but a one-by-one transfer from heterogeneous to homogeneous catalysis seems not to be feasible [21 bj. A key problem is the... 

---