Single-walled carbon nanotubes supported Ni–Y as catalyst for ultra-deep hydrodesulfurization of gasoline and diesel

• Ni–Y/SWCNTs prepared from the graphite and nickel/yttrium catalyst.
• Ni–Y bi-metallic catalyst showing better HDS effect than mono-metal catalysts.
• Ni–Y/SWCNTs used in HDS for FCC gasoline and diesel.
• Oxidized Ni–Y/SWCNTs showing better HDS activity than that of non-oxidized.

To obtain ultra-deep hydrodesulfurization (HDS) on the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) gasoline and diesel, a novel catalyst has been prepared by an arc discharge method. This nickel yttrium (Ni–Y) bi-metallic catalyst is attached on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and it shows higher HDS activities than that of mono-metal catalyst. Our results demonstrate that the content of SWCNTs has important effect on HDS when the Ni–Y/SWCNTs are oxidized by heat treatment. In addition, further results found that prepared in the He atmosphere by arc discharge, the oxidized Ni–Y/SWCNTs have the best HDS performance due to the high yield of SWCNTs and the much smaller size of Ni–Y nanoparticles. When the Ni–Y/SWCNTs, oxidized at 200 °C, are used in the continuous HDS reaction with FCC gasoline as feedstock, the S content of the hydrotreated product is reduced from 259 mg/L to less than 1 mg/L starting from the sixth hour to thirty second hour in reaction.