(100d) Effect of Chlorine, Fluorine and Titania on Surface Structure and Hydroprocessing Activity of Ni-Mo Catalysts Supported on Alumina

In this work, three catalysts namely NiMo/Al2O3-12 wt% Cl, NiMo/Al2O3-4 wt% F and NiMo/Al2O3-6 wt% Ti were prepared. All modified supports and fresh catalysts were characterized by BET surface area, pore volume and pore diameter, XRD, TPR, TPD, XPS, and XANES techniques. Addition of chlorine and fluorine formed weak-intermediate acid-centers on the catalyst surface whereas titania formed weak-intermediate-strong acid-centers. Also, these elements increased the formation of polymolydenum oxide on the catalyst as evident from TPR and XPS analysis. XANES analysis showed that incorporation of chlorine, fluorine and titania increased the formation of molybdenum oxide on the catalyst. The initial activity of these catalysts were tested in a trickle-bed reactor using three different gas oils such as light gas oil (LGO), blended gas oil (Blended: 50% LGO and 50% HGO) and heavy gas oil (HGO), all derived from Athabasca bitumen. This research showed that the optimum catalysts (containing 12 wt% chlorine or 6 wt% titania on Al2O3) removed over 86 wt% nitrogen compounds from blended feed which was higher than that from commercial catalyst. However, addition of additives in alumina had very little effect on sulfur conversion of blended and HGO.