The global demand for light transportation fuels such as gasoline and diesel and lighter petrochemical feedstocks such as ethylene and propylene are steadily increasing, but the world’s supply of crude oil is becoming heavier and heavier. This situation calls for high-efficient utilization of unconventional resources including vacuum residua of conventional crude oils, tar sands, oil shale and coal tar. Compared with various commercial upgrading processes available, slurry-phase hydrocracking (SPHC) is considered as a promising process to fill the gap between the ever-increase demand for vehicle fuels and petrochemical feedstocks and the fast-depleting supply of high-quality crude oil, but up to date no SPHC process has been put into industrial operation. Because of the one-through nature of SPHC processes, the catalyst used should satisfy the following two prerequisites: providing high-performance (high conversion of feedstock and high selectivity to target products) and being cheap in cost. Herein we report a simple and cost-effective strategy to prepare high-efficient SPHC catalysts from bauxite, a natural aluminum ore with abundant reserves in the earth. The physicochemical properties of acid-modified bauxites were systematic characterized and the catalytic performance of Mo/bauxites were evaluated in SPHC process using high temperature coal tar (HTCT) as feedstock, a byproduct of coal carbonization/gasification that has abundant supply and is considered as a potential feedstock to refineries in the future. The results show that the simple modification of a bauxite with solutions of HCl or H2C2O4 can result in a SPHC catalyst support with high specific surface area and pore volume, and the followed incorporation of a suitable amount of Mo yields a SPHC catalyst with high dispersion and sulfidation of Mo species. When used for hydrocracking a HTCT, the catalyst gave high liquid yield and lower coke and gas yields, demonstrating superior catalytic performance. Additionally, a rough estimation showed that the bauxite-derived support can reduce the total catalyst cost by 50~60% compared to conventional γ-Al2O3 support. Our success provides an economic and effective catalyst for refiners to convert unconventional heavy feedstocks to value-added products.

Cost-effective strategy to prepare high-efficient slurry-phase hydrocracking catalysts from acid-modified bauxite

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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