Higher alcohols synthesis (HAS) via syngas has attracted much attention from both industry and academia due to their application as fuel, fuel additives and intermediates for value-added chemicals. Many catalysts have been reported for HAS via syngas and the typical ones include modified methanol catalysts, Rh based catalysts, molybdenum based catalysts, and modified Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) catalysts. Among them, the Cu modified F-T catalysts have been considered as one of the most promising catalysts. However, largescale industrial application for Cu modified F-T catalysts is not available due to the poor stability in long-term run and the low total alcohol selectivity from the practical point of view. Courty et al proposed that the separation of Co (F-T component) from the originally homogeneously distributed Cu-Co phases might be one of the reasons that caused the decrease of alcohol selectivity. Previously, we found the CuFe bimetallic nanoparticle is promising catalyst for HAS especially for C6~+OH synthesis. Herein, the structure evolution of CuFe bimetallic nanoparticle during HAS process was studied in detail. In addition, the correlation of the change of catalytic performance with the structure evolution was also investigated to reveal the nature of deactivation mechanism of CuFe nanocatalysts. The separation of Cu and Fe components was directly observed, and was responsible to decreased alcohol selectivity.
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