Influence of alumina precursor on silicon capacity of NiMo/γ-Al2O3 guard bed catalysts for gas oil hydrotreating

Abstract The influence of alumina precursors on NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalysts for silicon removal from gas oil have been studied. Alumina precursors were prepared by hydrothermal treatment of gibbsite, precipitation of aluminum nitrate by ammonia and precipitation of aluminum nitrate in autoclave. Alumina precursors, supports and catalysts were studied by XRD, nitrogen adsorption-desorption, IR spectroscopy, UV–vis, XPS, SEM, HRTEM. Series of NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalysts differed in preparation method of alumina precursors was tested in hydrotreating of diesel fraction contaminated with decamethylcyclopentasiloxane as a model silicon compound. It was shown that prepared alumina precursors were boehmites and dawsonite, which had different particle size. The supports prepared from these alumina precursors were γ-Al2O3 with different particles size. It was shown that there was a dependence of the surface area of the support on the size of primary particles measured by XRD. The higher surface area results in the higher content of OH groups and silicon sorption capacity. Morphology of the sulfide active component also depends on the size of primary particles. The higher length of the particles, the higher slab length of NiMoS phase. The catalyst with the lowest particle size of alumina and highest length of active component had the highest HDS activity.