A detailed investigation on rhenium loaded SBA-15 supported catalyst for hydrodenitrogenation reaction of cyclohexylamine

The present work is aiming to utilize Re based catalysts for hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) of cyclohexylamine over SBA-15 supported catalyst under optimized conditions. Siliceous SBA-15 was synthesized by hydrothermal method and used as a support for Re catalysts with different Re loadings (1, 3, 5 and 7 wt%). The supported catalysts were characterized by various physico-chemical techniques like XRD, N-2-sorption studies, UV-DRS, FE-SEM, HR-TEM, NH3-TPD, Raman spectroscopy and XPS (sulfided catalyst). The oxide catalysts were presulfided before the hydrodenitrogenation reaction using ditertiary butyl polysulfide (DBPS) as sulfiding agent and hydrogen. The catalytic activity of the sulfided catalysts was tested for HDN of cyclohexylamine. A high HDN activity was observed on 5 wt% Re loaded SBA-15 catalyst. The catalytic activity was correlated with characterization results.