Magnifying the morphology change induced by a nickel promoter in tungsten(IV) sulfide industrial hydrocracking catalyst : a HAADF-STEM and DFT study.

Maria Girleanu (1) , Thibault Alphazan (2) , Zoubeyr Boudene (2) , Audrey Bonduelle-Skrzypczak (2) , Christèle Legens (2) , Anne-Sophie Gay (2) , Christophe Copéret (3) , Ovidiu Ersen (4) , Pascal Raybaud (2)

1 UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg
2 IFPEN - IFP Energies nouvelles
3 ETH Zürich - Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [Zürich]
4 IPCMS - Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg

Changes in the two-dimensional (2D) morphology of nonpromoted WS2 and Ni-promoted WS2 (NiWS) catalytically active nanolayers supported on amorphous silica-alumina (ASA) are revealed by aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and rationalized by density functional theory calculations. The presence of the Ni atoms modifies the triangular shape of nonpromoted WS2/ASA nanolayers into a more hexagonal one for NiWS/ASA by stabilizing the S edge more strongly than the W edge. The higher catalytic activity induced by the addition of the promoter confirms the relevance of such a morphology effect for industrial catalysts.

Keywords: density functional calculations; electron microscopy; hydrotreatment; NiWS; silica alumina

Domains: Catalysis

Maria Girleanu, Thibault Alphazan, Zoubeyr Boudene, Audrey Bonduelle-Skrzypczak, Christèle Legens, et al.. Magnifying the morphology change induced by a nickel promoter in tungsten(IV) sulfide industrial hydrocracking catalyst : a HAADF-STEM and DFT study.. ChemCatChem, 2014, 6 (6), pp.1594-1598. ⟨10.1002/cctc.201402115⟩. ⟨hal-01052710⟩