Support effects of NiW catalysts for highly selective sulfur removal from light hydrocarbons

•The support can induce morphological changes in the NiWS active phase.•The carriers play a paramount role in the final activity and selectivity of catalysts.•Is possible to modulate the metal-support interaction by substituting the carrier.•Decrease in the WS2 slab length correlates well with the activity.•NiW catalysts over Al2O3-TiO2 and ZrO2-TiO2 showed the highest catalytic behavior.

The intrinsic support effect was explored in the preparation of NiW hydrodesulfurization catalysts through building correlations of catalytic performance to extensive surface characterization results. We found that the catalytic activity on the hydrodesulfurization of 3,methyl-thiophene correlates well with the normalized intensities data of NO adsorbed on Ni active sites. Also, a correlation between the catalytic activity and the number of tungsten edge atoms in the WS2 slabs was observed. The characterization of the NiW catalysts revealed that is possible to modulate the metal-support interaction by substituting the carrier. This specific interaction with each support derived into particular morphological parameters for the sulfide active phase. Optimal values for the slab length and the stacking of the WS2 slabs were proposed.

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