Simultaneous hydrodesulfurization of thiophene and benzothiophene over NiMoS catalysts supported on γ-Al2O3 composites containing ZSM-5

Abstract

Alumina composites containing microporous ZSM-5 (Z-5) and mesoporous ZSM-5 (MZ-5), corresponding to xZA and xMZA, were developed by incorporating Z-5 and MZ-5 into γ - Al2O3, respectively. The two series of NiMoS/xMZA and NiMoS/xZA catalysts were prepared with these two composites as supports, respectively, and were used for the simultaneous hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of thiophene (T) and benzothiophene (BT). The results show that NiMoS/xMZA series catalysts exhibit higher HDS activity than that of NiMoS/xZA and NiMoS/γ-Al2O3, and the HDS activity of NiMoS/xMZA catalysts increases with the increase of MZ-5. The high HDS activity can be mainly attributed to the synergistic effects of the efficient diffusing pore channels, high dispersion of type II NiMoS phases, suitable acidity, and moderate Mo-support interaction. Moreover, the product distribution of HDS shows that the NiMoS/xMZA catalysts possess the dominant direct desulfurization (DDS) selectivity and the selectivity increases with the increase of MZ-5 content due to more corner sites and suitable Brønsted (B) acid sites, whereas the NiMoS/xZA catalysts perform more excellent hydrogenation (HYD) selectivity, and the selectivity increases with the increase of Z-5 content because of the existence of more edge sites. Based on this, the possible reaction network for T and BT hydrodesulfurization over the catalysts are proposed.