Estudo estrutural e determinação de propriedades físico-químicas de calcinados a partir das hidrotalcitas do tipo MgZnAl-CO3

Abstract

The heterogeneous catalysis plays an important role in the development of environmentally sustainable technologies, including multiple industries sectors. An increasingly stringent standard for pollutant emissions imposes an enhancement in these processes. Based on this fact, improvement in the preparation of hydrotreating catalysts is gaining attention from several research groups because of the need to produce cleaner fuels, as lower amounts of impurities such as sulfur compounds. Depending on the purpose, the development process of a catalyst may consist in an extreme situation, as the development of a new catalyst where no data is available about it, or the process may consist in improving a catalyst already known. In this work, we try to contribute to the improvement of a known catalyst already, altering the support in which it is dispersed. To these purposes hydrotalcites like MgZnAl-CO32- compounds were synthesized. After calcination at 500 °C supports were obtained and impregnated as salts of cobalt and molybdenum. These materials were calcined to obtain oxides of cobalt and molybdenum dispersed on the surface of the supports for subsequent sulfidation and activation. This final stage was made in situ, where soon after occurred the catalytic evaluation for HDS of thiophene and HID of cyclohexene. The precursors were prepared from different synthetic routes such as coprecipitation, urea hydrolysis, and coprecipitation assisted by ultrasound. For all synthesis, the ratio between divalent metallic cations (Zn2+ and Mg2+), y, was tested at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50, 75 and 100 mol%. These materials were studied with different analytical techniques, where the formation of the typical compounds of the phase hydrotalcite with carbonate in the interlayer region can be seen. The analysis of ICP-AES and CNH suggested greater control of stoichiometry in samples obtained by ultrasound and co-precipitation. Thermal decomposition of hydrotalcites samples from different series, Znys were investigated by X-ray diffraction in situ, where varying the temperature range of 100 to 1000 °C, we observed a very similar thermal response to the samples obtained by different synthetic routes but with the same zinc content. Furthermore, the study showed that thermodecomposition of the samples formed an amorphous phase around 400 °C and that the phase associated with the crystallite size is responsible by peak broadening in the region of the middle angle diffraction. The influence of the zinc content and synthesis methodology on the physicochemical properties of mixed oxide derivatives from the hydrotalcite precursor MgZnAl-HT was evaluated through the adsorption/desorption of N2 and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), where it was observed that precursors synthesis variables influence on the physicochemical properties of the supports. The catalytic evaluation of the materials showed that all of them were active for hydrodesulfurization of thiophene and hydrogenation of cyclohexene. Samples Zn5uCoMoS and Zn15cCoMoS were selectivity in the hydrogenation and hydrodesulfurization reactions than the conventional catalyst supported in alumina. Regarding the commercial catalyst, all catalysts of the ZnysCoMoS series obtained in this study were more selective, highlighting the Zn5cCoMoS catalyst which in addition to more selective presented itself more efficient for hydrodesulfurization of thiophene as compared to the commercial catalyst. Thus, from the results it was observed that the catalytic activity and selectivity of the catalysts are sensitive to small changes in preparation procedures used to obtain the supports, since catalysts with very similar chemical compositions showed different catalytic properties.