Carbon nanofiber-doped zeolite as support for molybdenum based catalysts for enhanced hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene

Zeolite (Z) doped carbon nanofiber (CNF) was prepared as a support for a molybdenum (Mo) based catalyst and cobalt (Co) or nickel (Ni) were used as a promoter. The catalytic behavior of the synthesized catalyst zeolite-CNF/[sbnd]MoCo (ZFMoCo) or zeolite-CNF/[sbnd]MoNi (ZFMoNi) was evaluated for the hydrodesulfurization (HDS) reaction of dibenzo-thiophene (DBT) and compared with the catalyst without CNF (ZMoNi and ZMoCo). A set of characterizations were used to illustrate the physico-chemical properties of the catalyst. The catalytic activity of the catalyst was compared to the reference catalyst without CNF, and it was found that CNF has an effective role in improving the activity for sulfur removal from 90% (ZMoNi) to 95% (ZFMoNi) and from 92% (ZMoCo) to 98% (ZFMoCo). This could be due to the enhancement in the surface area after doping the CNF. Increasing the area for the dispersion of the active phase on the composite support surface (Z-CNF) showed higher catalytic performance.