The Danish Council of Independent Research has granted funds to carry out Atomic-scale studies of iron-based Fischer-Tropsch catalyst.

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is already proven technology for the production of premium quality fuels from biomass, coal and natural gas, but a lack of detailed insight into the active catalyst is currently inhibiting the improvements on process selectivity and stability. It is believed that control over particle morphology and size, atomic-scale surface structure and composition of the active Fe-carbide can lead to such improvements. Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) stands out as an excellent tool that provides such insight on model catalyst systems. Our preliminary STM results indeed show that Fe-carbide nanoparticles can be studied in atomic detail. The insight will be used to construct a structure-activity correlation for Fe-FTS based catalysts, and thereby provide new underlying knowledge needed to synthesize better FTS catalysts.