Kinetics of Hydrodesulfurization of Dibenzothiophene on Sulfided Commercial Co-Mo/γ-Al2O3 Catalyst

Kinetics of hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene (DBT) has been studied on a commercial CoMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst at 633 - 683 K and 10 atm. A low DBT concentration typically obtained in hydrodesulfurization operations was used. Pseudo-first-order model was found to fit the experimental data for the consumption of DBT. The activation energy for the conversion of DBT was found to be 51.7 kcal/mol. Biphenyl (BP) and cyclohexylbenzene (CHB) were obtained as dominant products. For the reaction network, both parallel and parallel-sequential routes were explored. The latter was found to give a better description of the BP and CHB distributions. The ratio of BP to CHB depended on the reaction temperature. The values of activation energies of DBT hydrogenolysis to BP (EBP), DBT hydrogenation to CHB (ECHB1) and hydrogenation of BP to CHB (ECHB2) were found to be in a decreasing order of ECHB2 > EBP > ECHB1. The result suggests the presence of different catalytic sites leading to the two products on the catalysts

Activity of CoMo/Υ-Al2O3 as a catalyst in hydrodesulfurization: Effects of Co/Mo ratio and drying condition

A series of Υ-alumina-supported cobalt-molybdenum hydrodesulfurization catalysts have been prepared with different ratios of cobalt to molybdenum (0.0-1.0) and under different drying temperatures (323, 373 and 423 K). The active components ions were loaded on the alumina via an incipient wetness impregnation method. The catalysts were converted to active sulfide form using dimethyldisulfide. Hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT) was tested at 550-683 K and 10 atm. Samples of the catalysts were characterized using SEM and XPS techniques. Changes in grain sizes and binding energy due to the cobalt-molybdenum interactions have been observed. The catalyst activities based on dibenzothiophene conversion rate constants and product (biphenyl BP and cyclohexylbenzene CHB) distributions, depended strongly on the Co/Mo ratios. CHB/BP ratio as high as 0.2 was obtained for Co/Mo of 0.2-0.4, while for higher Co/Mo ratios, no CHB was observed. The ratio of about 0.4 exhibited the highest rate constant. The drying temperature was found to improve the activities, with the lowest temperature showing the best performance in terms of dibenzothiophene degree of conversion. Such results suggest that cobalt and molybdenum are associated in a fixed proportion and that their distribution on the support surface, which in turn improves catalyst performance, could be modified by the catalyst preparation conditions