Reactive adsorption of thiophene on Ni/ZnO: role of hydrogen pretreatment and nature of the rate determining step.

Abstract Reactive adsorption of thiophene on reduced and unreduced NiO/ZnO adsorbents was studied by thermal gravimetric analysis and by sulfidation in a fixed bed reactor at 330–375 °C and 10–40 mbar of thiophene in hydrogen. The adsorbents (12 wt% Ni) were prepared by co-precipitation of corresponding nitrates with sodium carbonate followed by calcination at 400 °C. We have found that such solids can react with thiophene without any prior reduction. Metallic Ni, indispensable for thiophene decomposition, is formed in this case in situ upon the contact with thiophene/H 2 reaction mixture. The reduction of NiO/ZnO in H 2 (360 °C, 6 h) results in the formation of Ni–Zn alloyed particles (as …

Kinetics of thiophene reactive adsorption.

Kinetics of thiophene reactive adsorption on Ni/SiO2 and Ni/ZnO.

Abstract Kinetics of thiophene reactive adsorption on Ni/SiO2 and Ni/ZnO was studied by thermal gravimetric analysis at 280–360 °C under 5–40 mbar of thiophene in H2. In the case of Ni/SiO2 the interaction proceeds in two steps: a rapid surface reaction is followed by a slower bulk transformation into Ni3S2. Maximum Ni conversion depends on reaction conditions and observed conversion profiles can be described by an exponential equation corresponding to a reaction of first order relatively to both sulfidable Ni amount and thiophene. The interaction between Ni/ZnO and thiophene proceeds in a rather different manner. A rapid increase of weight, similar to the first stage observed on Ni/SiO2, i…