Mesoporous zeolite-supported metal sulfide catalysts with high activities in the deep hydrogenation of phenanthrene

Developing highly active hydrogenation catalysts for deep aromatics saturation is of great importance in the production of ultraclean diesel fuel at a low cost. Toward this goal, we synthesized a mesoporous zeolite ZSM-5 (MZSM-5) that was cost-effective and available on a large scale, and used it as a support for the preparation of highly efficient metal sulfide catalysts (NiMoS/MZSM-5 and CoMoS/MZSM-5) for the deep hydrogenation of phenanthrene. The intrinsic activity of the NiM0S/MZSM-5 catalyst (7.4 x 10(-4) mol kg(-1) s(-1)) was much higher than that of the alumina-supported NiMo catalyst (NiMOS/gamma-Al2O3, 4.8 x 10(-4) mol kg(-1) s(-1)), and the selectivity of the deep hydrogenation products over NiM0S/MZSM-5 (20.9%) was higher than for NiMOS/gamma-Al2O3 (15.2%). Compared with gamma-Al2O3, the relatively weak metal-support interaction could facilitate the formation of polymolybdates on MZSM-5. After sulfidation, the more multistacked MoS2 active phases were formed on the MZSM-5, enhancing the hydrogenation activity of the NiMOS/MZSM-5 catalyst. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.