REACTIVITY AND MORPHOLOGY OF Ni, Mo, AND Ni–Mo OXIDE CLUSTERS SUPPORTED ON MCM-48 TOWARD THIOPHENE HYDRODESULPHURIZATION

In this paper, the morphology, chemical composition and reactivity of MCM-48 powders impregnated with Ni, Mo or both toward hydrodesulphurization (HDS) of thiophene were characterized. The reactivity of the catalyst was quantitatively compared with a standard industrial catalyst (from HaldorTopsoe, Denmark) and a novel WS2 nanotube-based catalysts (from R. Tenne, Israel). Morphology and chemical composition were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and EDX elemental maps. Reactivity was determined in a gas-chromatograph based mini flow reactor using thiophene as a probe molecule. The sulfided MCM-48 supported Mo catalyst showed the largest HDS activity with turnover frequencies (TOF) about half as large as for the commercial system under the test conditions used here. Presulfiding did increase activity of all MCM-48 catalysts.