Oxidative Desulfurization of DBT Using Tri-metallic Ni-Mo-W Nanocatalysts Based on Different Natural Zeolites: Mordenite, Ferrierite, and Clinoptilolite

In this paper, natural zeolites of clinoptilolite, ferrierite, and mordenite were chemically modified and used as support of NiMoW catalysts. The NiMoW based catalysts were characterized by XRD, FESEM, and FTIR. In all studied catalysts, according to XRD, NiO exists in small crystallites but XRD peaks attributed to MoO2, MoO3 or WO3 were not observed. FESEM indicted NiMoW-Ferr had small particles with high dispersion and strong interaction. Moreover, lower Si/Al ratio and higher population of metal oxides in NiMoW-Ferr nanocatalyst was confirmed by FTIR. Finally, among studied nanocatalysts, evaluation of synthesized samples in oxidative desulfurization of dibenzothiophene showed NiMoW-Ferr had supreme activity of 92.8% of dibenzothiophene removal in 250 ppm, 0.2 g of catalyst, 60 °C and 60 min reaction time.