Recently, Professor Ye Wang and his group have demonstrated a first example to significantly enhance the diesel fuel selectivity in Fischer–Tropsch Synthesis by effectively controlling the hydrogenolysis.

The achievement gets reviewers' high appraisal. The paper, "Impact of Hydrogenolysis on the Selectivity of the Fischer–Tropsch Synthesis: Diesel Fuel Production over Mesoporous Zeolite Y-Supported Cobalt Nanoparticles" has been published on Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. as VIP (Very Important Paper).

Fischer–Tropsch (FT) Synthesis is a most feasible method of conversion and utilization of syngas (CO/H₂) derived from nonpetroleum carbon resources such as shade gas, coal, and biomass, into hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals. The production of CO hydrogenation is diverse, so the selectivity control is one of the most important parameters of syngas conversion. The FT products generally follow the Anderson–Schulz–Flory (ASF) distribution, which is unselective for middle-distillate products. Therefore, a new method or strategy for effective control of product selectivity remains one of the grand challenges in this field.

Ye Wang’s group have been working on control of product selectivity of syngas. In order to raise the selectivity of middle-distillate products, they proposed a new strategy for hydrocracking of heavier hydrocarbons (C_≥21). Based on this strategy, a new bifunctional catalyst has been developed, such as ruthenium or rhodium nanoparticles supported on carbon nanotubes with acid functional groups or acid mesoporous zeolite. These achievements have been published on Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. in 2009 and 2011(2009, 48, 2565-2568; 2011, 50, 5200-5203). Recently, based on that selectivity over Co nanoparticle supported on nonacid supporter is significantly higher than that expected from ASF distribution (can be changed), Wang's group found out that hydrogenolysis reaction on Co nanoparticle plays an important role in improving the selectivity of FT synthesis. Hydrogenolysis is known to occur during FT synthesis, but its impact on product selectivity has been overlooked because it produces methane which is negative to the reaction. Wang's group has demonstrated that the hydrogenolysis of heavier hydrocarbons occurs over supported cobalt catalysts under FT reaction conditions and exerts significant effects on the product selectivity. It has been clarified that the cobalt nanoparticle size and the support mesopore size are key factors which determine the activity and selectivity of hydrogenolysis. For the first time, the group demonstrate that effective control of hydrogenolysis can enhance the diesel fuel selectivity while keeping methane selectivity low. The diesel (C_10-20) fractions selectivity reached 60% over Co/Na-meso-Y catalyst with medium-sized cobalt particles and mesopores, and is significantly higher than the maximum (39%) expected from the ASF distribution. The present work also offers possible interpretations of the effects of the cobalt particle size and the support pore size in FT synthesis.

This work is the achievement of collaboration between 2011-iChem Dr. Kang Cheng, Dr. Xiaobo Peng and National Engineering Laboratory Dr. Jincan Kang. This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2013CB933102), the Natural Science Foundation of China (21433008, 21173174, and 21161130522)

Resources from：http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201411708/abstract