Hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene using NiMoWS catalysts supported on Al-Mg and Ti-Mg mixed oxides

In this work, two series of trimetallic NiMoW sulfide catalysts supported on Al-Mg(x) and Ti-Mg(x) mixed oxides with different content of MgO (x = 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt.% of MgO) were synthesized. The mixed oxides and catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, N₂physisorption and Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS UV-Vis); and evaluated during the hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT) reaction. The NiMoW/Al-Mg catalysts showed a higher dispersion of Ni, Mo and Wspecies than NiMoW/Ti-Mg catalysts resulting in higher catalytic activities. Catalysts with 10 wt.% of MgO showed the highest catalytic activity for both series of catalysts. Most of the synthesized catalysts exhibited higher activities than NiMoWS/Al-Ti reference catalyst. The present comparison study clearly showed that NiMoW/Al-Mg and NiMoW/Ti-Mg catalyst with 10 wt.% of MgO might be a promising and effective catalyst for the HDS-DBT reaction.