Yu, Hailing; Wang, Caiqi; Lin, Tiejun; An, Yunlei; Wang, Yuchen; Chang, Qingyu; Yu, Fei; Wei, Yao; Sun, Fanfei; Jiang, Zheng; Li, Shenggang; Sun, Yuhan; Zhong, Liangshu

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

2022, 13,

Yu, Hailing; Wang, Caiqi; Lin, Tiejun; An, Yunlei; Wang, Yuchen; Chang, Qingyu; Yu, Fei; Wei, Yao; Sun, Fanfei; Jiang, Zheng; Li, Shenggang; Sun, Yuhan; Zhong, Liangshu

Syngas conversion serves as a competitive strategy to produce olefins chemicals from nonpetroleum resources. However, the goal to achieve desirable olefins selectivity with limited undesired C1 by-products remains a grand challenge. Herein, we present a non-classical Fischer-Tropsch to olefins process featuring high carbon efficiency that realizes 80.1% olefins selectivity with ultralow total selectivity of CH4 and CO2 (<5%) at CO conversion of 45.8%. This is enabled by sodium-promoted metallic ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticles with negligible water-gas-shift reactivity. Change in the local electronic structure and the decreased reactivity of chemisorbed H species on Ru surfaces tailor the reaction pathway to favor olefins production. No obvious deactivation is observed within 550 hours and the pellet catalyst also exhibits excellent catalytic performance in a pilot-scale reactor, suggesting promising practical applications. Zhong et al report sodium-promoted metallic Ru nanoparticles for the direct production of olefins from syngas with ultrahigh carbon efficiency where the total selectivity of undesired CH4 and CO2 is suppressed to only 5% for over 500 hours on stream.