Kinetic behavior of hydrogenation of aromatics in diesel fuel over silica–alumina-supported bimetallic Pt–Pd catalyst Original Research Article

The kinetics and long-term stability test of the aromatic hydrogenation of diesel fuel were studied on SiO2–Al2O3 supported bimetallic Pt–Pd catalyst. The tests on the influence of operating parameters and kinetics studies were carried out using Pt (0.5 wt.%)–Pd (1.0 wt.%)/SiO2–Al2O3, which provided the highest catalytic activity in a previous paper [Applied Catalysis A: General, 192 (2000) 253] with hydrotreated light cycle oil (LCO)/straight-run light gas oil (SRLGO) feedstocks containing 30 vol.% aromatics/100 wppm sulfur and 34 vol.% aromatics/420 wppm sulfur under numerous conditions. The results on this catalyst obtained at different LHSV showed an excellent fit to first-order kinetics. The apparent activation energy was determined to be 92 kJ/mol. Long-term stability test demonstrated the excellent stability of this catalyst. The products during the long-term stability test are of good quality, with the upgraded color, the increased cetane index, and sufficiently decreased sulfur content.