Preparation of NiMo/KIT-6 hydrodesulfurization catalysts with tunable sulfidation and dispersion degrees of active phase by addition of citric acid as chelating agent

Novel NiMo hydrodesulfurization (HDS) catalysts were prepared by using the well ordered 3D cubic Ia3¯d mesoporous KIT-6 silica as support and citric acid (CA) as chelating agent. The highest activity for 4,6-DMDBT HDS was obtained over the NiMoKC2 catalyst with CA/Ni = 2 due to the enhancement of the hydrogenation (HYD) activity.