Different role of H2S and dibenzothiophene in the incorporation of sulfur in the surface of bulk MoP during hydrodesulfurization

Journal of Catalysis, Volume 300, April 2013, Pages 197–200
Different role of H2S and dibenzothiophene in the incorporation of sulfur in the surface of bulk MoP during hydrodesulfurization
Jin Bai (a), Xiang Li (a), (b), Anjie Wang (a), (b), Roel Prins (c), Yao Wang (b)
a State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, Dalian 116024, PR China
b Liaoning Key Laboratory of Petrochemical Technology and Equipments, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, Dalian 116024, PR China
c Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract
The surface of MoP becomes sulfided during hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT), and the HDS activity increases with time on stream. This demonstrates that the sulfided MoP surface is more active than the fresh MoP surface. MoP pretreated with H₂S/H₂ under HDS reaction conditions showed the same activity increase as fresh MoP. However, XPS did not show any sulfur at the surface of the pretreated MoP. Therefore, it is evident that the sulfur that is incorporated into the MoP surface during the HDS of DBT originates from DBT rather than from H₂S.
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