Kinetics of hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene (DBT) has been studied on a commercial CoMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst at 633 - 683 K and 10 atm. A low DBT concentration typically obtained in hydrodesulfurization operations was used. Pseudo-first-order model was found to fit the experimental data for the consumption of DBT. The activation energy for the conversion of DBT was found to be 51.7 kcal/mol. Biphenyl (BP) and cyclohexylbenzene (CHB) were obtained as dominant products. For the reaction network, both parallel and parallel-sequential routes were explored. The latter was found to give a better description of the BP and CHB distributions. The ratio of BP to CHB depended on the reaction temperature. The values of activation energies of DBT hydrogenolysis to BP (EBP), DBT hydrogenation to CHB (ECHB1) and hydrogenation of BP to CHB (ECHB2) were found to be in a decreasing order of ECHB2 > EBP > ECHB1. The result suggests the presence of different catalytic sites leading to the two products on the catalysts.

Kinetics of hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene (DBT) has been studied on a commercial CoMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst at 633 - 683 K and 10 atm. A low DBT concentration typically obtained in hydrodesulfurization operations was used. Pseudo-first-order model was found to fit the experimental data for t...