Facile synthesis of few-layer MoS2 nanosheets with different morphologies supported on Al-TUD-1 for efficient hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene

Low-cost pure aluminum-based Al-TUD-1 mesoporous materials (AT) were successfully synthesized and the corresponding NiMo/AT catalysts were modified with Citric acid (CA), which were utilized for dibenzothiophene (DBT) and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DMDBT) hydrodesulfurization (HDS) reactions. CA could effectively modulate the acidity and metal-support-interaction (MSI) of NiMoCA(x)/AT catalysts, which were in favor of generating more MoS2 active species with higher sulfurization degree and higher dispersion degree. The morphology of the MoS2 active phase of NiMoCA(x)/AT catalysts was changed after the addition of CA. The NiMoCA(2)/AT catalyst showed the higher B/L ratio and higher S-edge/M-edge ratio, which was conducive to the isomerization (ISO) route selectivity (81%) of 4,6-DMDBT HDS, thus resulting the improvement of HDS activity of the NiMoCA(2)/AT catalyst. The NiMoCA(2)/AT exhibited the maximal DBT and 4,6-DMDBT HDS efficiency of 99.0% and 95.5% as well as maximal kHDS and TOF values of 4,6-DMDBT HDS (13.4 × 10−4 mol⋅g−1⋅h−1, 4.7 h−1) among other series NiMoCA(x)/AT catalysts and reference commercial NiMo/Al2O3 catalyst at the Weight hour space velocity (WHSV) of 10 h−1.