The main objective of this work was to evaluate the support and the promoting effect on the catalytic properties of HDS catalysts. In order to obtain appropriate catalytic systems, we applied the “acac method” which consists to add the promoter as an acetylacetonate complex (of Co, Ni or Fe) onto the supported molybdenum sulfide (on γ-Al2O3, SiO2, TiO2 and ZrO2). The various solids obtained were characterized by TEM, IR(CO) and XPS in particular to quantify the active phases, and then they have been tested in the HDS reactions of thiophene and 4,6-DMDBT. The catalytic activity has been correlated to the characterization datas by a new approach which consists in calculating the apparent catalytic activity by NiMoS or CoMoS site. This approach showed that the quality of the active sites is the best on SiO2 and comparable on γ-Al2O3, TiO2 and ZrO2. Moreover, this “acac method” allowed us to study supported CoNiMoS catalysts synthesized by adding Co and Ni either simultaneously or successively to MoS2. This study represents an important experimental contribution which allow to discuss the hypothesis developped in theoretical studies about the different affinities of Co and Ni for the S-edge and Mo-edge on γ-Al2O3 and TiO2.
