Novel MWCNT-Support for Co-Mo Sulfide Catalyst in HDS of Thiophene and HDN of Pyrrole

With home-made multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs, simplified as CNTs in later text) as support, CNT-supported Co-Mo-S catalysts, denoted as x% (mass percentage) MoiCoj/CNTs, were prepared. Their catalytic performance for thiophene hydrodesulfurization (HDS) and pyrrole hydrodenitrification (HDN) reactions was studied, and compared with the reference system supported by AC. Over the 7.24%Mo3Co1/CNTs catalyst at reaction condition of 1.5 MPa, 613 K, C4H4S/H2=3.7/96.3 (molar ratio) and GHSV≈8000 mlSTp/(g-cat.h), the specific HDS activity of thiophene reached 3.29 mmolc4H4s/(s-molMo), which was 1.32 times as high as that (2.49 mmolc4H4s/(s-molMo)) of the AC-based counterpart, and was 2.47 times as high as that (1.33 mmolc4H4s/(s-molMo)) of the catalysts supported by AC with the respective optimal Mo3Co1-loading amount, 16.90%Mo3Co1/AC. Analogous reaction-chemical behaviours were also observed in the case of pyrrole HDN. It was experimentally found that using the CNTs in place of AC as support of the catalyst caused little change in the apparent activation energy for the thiophene HDS or pyrrole HDN reaction, but led to a significant increase in the concentration of catalytically active Mo-species (Mo4+) at the surface of the functioning catalyst. On the other hand, H2-TPD measurements revealed that the CNT-supported catalyst could reversibly adsorb a greater amount of hydrogen under atmospheric pressure at temperatures ranging from room temperature to about 673 K. This unique feature would help to generate microenvironments with higher stationary-state concentration of active hydrogen-adspecies at the surface of the functioning catalyst. Both factors mentioned above were favorable to increasing the rate of thiophene HDS and pyrrole HDN reactions.