Carbon materials have, in recent years, been attracting attention as
potential supports in heterogeneous catalysis. In 2006, the number of
articles dealing with various types of catalysts supported on carbon
approached 1000, however only a fraction of those were devoted to
hydroprocessing catalysts, despite the fact that interest in carbons as
supports for hydroprocessing catalysts began more than two decades ago.
This unique book is a comprehensive summary of recent research in the
field and covers all areas of carbons and carbon materials. The
potential application of carbon supports, particularly those of carbon
black (CB) and activated carbon (AC) in hydroprocessing catalysis are
covered extensively in the book. Novel carbon materials such as carbon
fibers and carbon nano tubes (CNT) are also covered, including the more
recent developments in the use of fullerenes in hydroprocessing
applications - an area with little published research. Although the
primary focus of this book is on carbons and carbon supported catalysts,
it also identifies the difference in the effect of carbon supports
compared with the oxidic supports, particularly that of y-AL2O3.
Although many books claim to have the same objective, this publication
is unique as the difference in catalyst activity and stability was
estimated using both model compounds and real feeds under variable
conditions. The conditions applied during the preparation of carbon
supported catalysts are also comprehensively covered and include various
methods of pretreatment of carbon supports to enhance catalyst
performance. The model compounds results consistently show higher
hydrodesulfurization and hydrodeoxygenation activities of carbon
supported catalysts than that of the y-Al2O3 supported catalysts. Also,
the deactivation of the former catalysts by coke deposition was much
less evident. Importantly, in this book, most of the model compounds
studies on hydrodesulfurization and hydrodeoxygenation were conducted in
the absence of nitrogen compounds, as the poisoning effects of such
compounds on hydroprocessing reactions are well known. Non-conventional
metals (e.g., Pt, Pd, Ru, Rh, Re and Ir) supported on carbon supports
are also studied in this book as catalysts for hydroprocessing of model
feeds and real feeds. The book shows that these catalysts are much more
active than conventional metals containing catalysts however the high
cost of these metals prevents commercial utilization of these catalysts.
Kinetics of hydroprocessing reactions, as well as kinetics of
deactivation over carbon supported catalysts are also investigated under
a wide range of experimental conditions and the y-Al2O3 supported
catalysts have been included for comparison. This book, unique in its
field, indicates the future potential of carbon supported catalysts
during hydroprocessing, particularly in deep hydrodesulfurization and
hydrodemetallization.
