A novel catalyst of Ni,W-surface-Ti-rich-ETS-10/Al2O3: Its role and potential of HDS performance for steric hindered sulfur compound 4,6-DMDBT

•Hydrodesulfurization catalyst was developed by adding surface Ti-rich ETS-10 (AT-ETS).•Surface Ti-rich ETS-10 presence relaxed the interaction between NiW and support.•High stacked and short slab length WS2 was obtained over NiW-AT-ETS/Al2O3.•NiW-AT-ETS/Al2O3 exhibited higher HDS for steric hindered sulfur compound 4,6-DMDBT.

There is growing interest in developing deep hydrodesulfurization (HDS) catalysts to obtain higher activity. This study provides an investigation of influence of surface-Ti-rich-ETS-10 (AT-ETS) on the performance of NiW-based catalyst (NiW-AT-ETS/Al2O3) using NiW-ETS-origin/Al2O3 as the reference. The HDS performance of dibenzothiophene (DBT) and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DMDBT) as model sulfur compounds were tested in fixed reactor. NiW-AT-ETS/Al2O3 containing surface-Ti-rich-ETS-10 lowered H2 reduction temperature compared to NiW-ETS-origin/Al2O3. NiW-AT-ETS/Al2O3 had higher WS2 stacking numbers and shorter slab length though they showed similar sulfidation degree. Higher HDS performance was obtained over NiW-AT-ETS/Al2O3 due to higher WS2 slab layers in contrast to NiW-ETS-origin/Al2O3. The advantage of NiW-AT-ETS/Al2O3 for 4,6-DMDBT removal may be also related to easy accessibility of active sites on the catalyst surface as a result of the higher dispersion compared to NiW-ETS-origin/Al2O3.

Graphical abstractA novel NiW-surface-Ti-rich-ETS/Al2O3HDS catalyst for steric hindered 4,6-DMDBT.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload high-quality image (135 K)Download as PowerPoint slide