Produção, caracterização e determinação de propriedades físico-químicas de catalisadores e suportes utilizados em processos de hidrotratamento

Abstract

The great interest in hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of gasoline is to perform a deep sulfur removal and, at the same time, to reduce the loss of the octane number occurring in the HDS process, by minimizing the hydrogenation of olefins which are beneficial to this property. Besides the active component and the promoter, the support has to be considered an integral part of the catalyst. In this sense, several supports (enclosing aluminas and mixed oxides) were prepared from calcination of different precursors. A commercial sample of Boehmite was used as precursor of alumina polymorphs. For comparison, three other precursors were synthesized from different methods. Particularly, the use of excess of urea promoted a very crystalline form of basic aluminum carbonate. Each precursor of alumina was calcined at various temperatures generating alumina polymorphs, which were structurally analyzed by XRD and 27Al MAS NMR. Due to interest in catalysis supports, special attention was given to the γ-Al2O3 phase, which in addition to structural investigation was subjected to textural analysis. These four γ-Al2O3 samples were used as catalyst supports like CoMo, which were tested in reactions of HDS of thiophene and HID of cyclohexene. The catalytic tests show that catalytic activities increase with pore diameters of CoMo/γ-Al2O3 phases and are directly related to dispersion of molybdenum on the support. The results showed that, from different synthesis procedures and common route of calcination, one can obtain materials with the same composition but with different structural and textural properties. Furthermore, supported CoMo catalysts containing 20 % of MoO3 and 3 % of CoO were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation of molybdenum and cobalt aqueous solutions over mixed oxides obtained from hydrotalcite precursors. The precursors, containing varying amounts of Mg, Co and Al or Ni, Co and Al cátions, were synthesized by urea hydrolysis method. The calcination led to mixed oxides whose structural characteristics depend on the composition. Characterization of the supports by BET, XRD, NMR, FTIR, UV-vis/DRS and TPR techniques was carried out. The sulfided samples were used as catalysts in simultaneous hydrodesulfurization of thiophene and hydrogenation of cyclohexene. The results were compared with conventional CoMo/γ-Al2O3 catalysts, which indicate that the catalytic activities depend on the preparation method of the precursors and supports. In the Mg-Co-Al series, the high magnesium content catalyst show higher HDS and HYD activities, suggesting that the support basicity is associated with catalytic performance. Furthermore, the free magnesium and high cobalt content catalyst show lower activities and higher selectivity (HDS/HYD = 3.86). The results indicate that the excess of cobalt decreases the activities while the presence of magnesium contributes to improve them. Otherwise, the Ni-Co-Al series show the smaller HDS/HYD ratios. In this case, the higher hydrogenation activities are assigned to high nickel content. Additionally, a comparison between catalysts containing 10 % of MoO3 and 3 % of CoO, supported on mixed oxides derived of LDH and a catalyst supported on alumina reveals that the most acidic support (alumina) has great influence over hydrogenation capacity of the catalyst. However, besides the composition and structural characteristics of the supports, the preparation method can to influence significantly the performance of a supported catalyst.