Influence of hydrothermally modified γ-Al2O3 on the properties of NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst

The influence of hydrothermal modification of γ-Al2O3 on the properties of NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst was investigated in this paper. The experimental results showed that the use of the modified γ-Al2O3 in the preparation of the NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst led to the increase of the dispersion of the surface Mo and Ni oxides, favored the formation of the poly-molybdates and promoted the reduction of the active Mo oxides owing to the increase of the surface acidity of the modified γ-Al2O3. Therefore, the NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst supported on the modified γ-Al2O3 exhibited a higher hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) activity than that supported on the untreated γ-Al2O3 in the temperature range of 300-340 °C.