Hydro‐upgrading of light cycle oil‐synthesis of NiMo/SiO 2 -Al 2 O 3 -TiO 2 porous catalyst

The demand for transportation diesel fuels has been increasing in most countries for the last decade. As is one of the primary sources for diesel distillates, light cycle oil (LCO), having the advantages of inheriting similar density and boiling point range to diesel fuels, but high contents of aromatics, sulfur, and nitrogen, needs to be upgraded before being utilized. This work reports a trinary porous SiO 2 –Al 2 O 3 –TiO 2 (SAT) synthesized by sol–gel method and used as the NiMo catalyst support for the LCO hydro-upgrading. NiMo/Al 2 O 3 -zeolite (AZ) was used as a reference to evaluate the performances of the NiMo/SAT. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET, Pyridine-FTIR, and TEM; and evaluated in a 20-mL fixed-bed microreactor using a Fluid Catalytic Cracking LCO as feedstock. It was found that the SAT support possessed a high surface area, high pore volume, and good acid properties. The NiMo/SAT catalyst exhibited even better hydrodesulfurization, hydrodenitrogenation, and hydrodearomatization performances than NiMo/AZ when the reaction was performed at 375 °C and 1100 psi. Compared with the zeolite addition catalyst, the SAT catalyst has the advantages of simple synthesis procedures and low input cost.