Catalyst Ni-Mo/Al2O3 promoted with infrared heating calcination for hydrodesulfurization of shale oil

Abstract

Abstract Ni-Mo/Al2O3 catalyst calcinated using infrared radiation heating was applied for the first time to hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of shale oil in a fixed bed reactor. Its catalytic performance was measured under varied operating conditions and compared to that obtained by using a catalyst with the same Ni-Mo composition but calcinated in a conventional electric furnace. The operation parameters of HDS were varied among temperature (320–400\xa0°C), pressure (1.0–4.0 Mpa), H2/oil (v/v) (200:1–600:1) and LHSV (1–4\xa0h−1). Under all tested conditions, the catalyst using the infrared heating method always yielded a product oil having the lower sulfur content than the catalyst heated by the conventional furnace did. At the optimal condition of T\xa0=\xa0380\xa0°C, P\xa0=\xa04\xa0MPa, H2/oil (v/v)\xa0=\xa0600:1 and LHSV\xa0=\xa04\xa0h−1, the infrared-heating catalyst enabled the oil to decrease its sulfur content to 2600\xa0ppm, which thus met the national Marine fuel oil standard (S