One-Pot Three-Dimensional Printing of a Hierarchical NiMo/Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> Monolithic Catalyst for 4,6-Dimethyldibenzothiophene Hydrodesulfurization
Jixing Liu, Jixing Liu, Jingyi Zhu, Jie Zhu, Jundong Xu, Hui Liu, Mingqing Hua, Huifang Cheng, Huaming Li, Jian Liu, Jian Liu, Wenshuai Zhu, Hongbing Ji
Abstract
The development of a competitive-cost and high-efficiency NiMo/Al 2 O 3 hydrodesulfurization (HDS) catalyst remains challenging in the field of petrochemical industry. Herein, a highly efficient NiMo/Al 2 O 3 monolithic HDS catalyst was elaborately designed and successfully fabricated via a one-pot three-dimensional (3D) printing strategy, and its HDS activity was examined for 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene conversion. The results unveil that the NiMo/Al 2 O 3 monolithic catalyst prepared by the 3D printing strategy (3D-NiMo/Al 2 O 3 ) exhibits hierarchical structure due to the combustion of hydroxymethyl cellulose serving as adhesive, which endows the weaker metal-support-interaction between Mo oxides and Al 2 O 3, remarkably promoting sulfidation of both Mo and Ni species and the formation of “Type II” NiMoS active phase, thereby reducing the apparent activation energy ( E a = 109.2 kJ·mol –1 ) and increasing the catalytic activity (TOF = 4.0 h –1 ) and thereafter dramatically boosting the HDS performance of 3D-NiMo/Al 2 O 3 compared with that of NiMo/Al 2 O 3 ( E a = 150.6 kJ·mol –1 and TOF = 2.1 h –1 ) counterpart synthesized by conventional method with P123 serving as the mesoporous template. Therefore, this study offers a facile and straightforward strategy to fabricate an efficient HDS catalyst with hierarchical structures.