Synthesis, characterization and catalytic performance of meso-microporous material Beta-SBA-15-supported NiMo catalysts for hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene

Micro-mesoporous composite material Beta-SBA-15 (BS) with the Beta structure and SBA-15 mesoporous structure was synthesized and used as catalyst support for hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT). The supports and catalysts were characterized by various techniques including XRD, nitrogen adsorption, SEM, TEM, ²⁷Al MAS NMR, and Pyridine-FTIR. The characterization results demonstrated that NiMo/BS had similar acidity to NiMo/Beta, and possessed more acid sites and stronger acidity than NiMo/SBA-15 and NiMo/Al₂O₃. Activity evaluation results showed that NiMo/BS exhibited the highest DBT HDS activity among all the catalysts that were studied, and the DBT conversion on NiMo/BS was about 1.6 times as much as that on NiMo/Al₂O₃ at weight time of 0.75 g min mol ^-1. The better catalytic performance of NiMo/BS was attributed to the superiorities of the pore structure and large amounts of acid sites of micro-mesoporous BS.