Abstract
Awareness about the environmental impact due to the use of petroleum resources has pushed forward the implementation of new environmental regulation around the world in order to limit sulphur emission due to fuel consumption. To fulfill these new regulations, it is necessary to look at the process allowing the reduction of the sulphur amount in fuel: hydrotreatment. This catalytic process requires the use of nickel (NiMoS) or cobalt (CoMoS) promoted transition metal sulfide catalyst (MoS2). This work proposes to use polymers as structuring agent in order to improve the catalytic properties of NiMoS compounds. For this purpose, homemade polymers capable of interactions with the precursors or the pre-catalyst have been synthesized and two synthetic routes have been explored in order to directly prepare NiMoS catalysts in the presence of polymers: metathesis and nucleation-growth. The use of an amphiphilic nonionic polymer, Pluronic® P123, during the synthesis by metathesis led to an increase of the specific surface area from 31 m²/g to 126 m²/g, as well as a reduction of the stacking and size of MoS2 layers. Catalytic tests conducted on this compound prepared with Pluronic® P123 showed increased catalytic activity for the hydrodesulphurization of 3-methylthiophene. In addition, a new synthetic way to directly prepare NiMoS in one step by nucleation-growth – in presence or not of polymer – leading to a promising catalyst for hydrodesulphurization has been developed.