Various highly dispersed Mo supported catalysts with various carriers were prepared for deep hydrodesulphurization of diesel. The carriers included a high surface area and large pore volume g-Al2O3, two types of meso-microporous composite molecular sieves prepared by incipientwetness impregnation method. A new mesoporous MoSiOx catalyst synthesized with in situ composite method was also studied. The hydrodesulphurization experiments were carried out in a micro-reactor over different catalysts including Mo supported series and a commercial catalyst. Spectroscopic techniques (FT-IR and UV–vis DRS) were utilized to determine the structure of MoOx species. The catalyst haracterizations of BET, XRD, FT-IR, UV–vis DRS and FTIR pyridine adsorption indicated that the existences of metal active component of Mo in the catalysts were highly dispersed nano MoO3 clusters and the Mo series catalysts had high surface areas and plenty of large pores which were propitious to the diffusions of reactant and product molecules. CatNiMo exhibited the highest B/L acidity ratio and higher total concentration of Bronsted acid sites and Lewis acid sites, and its HDS activity also gave the highest in this study to produce a sulphur-free diesel, which was verified by the sulphur content in products analyzed by GC–MS methods.

Many samples containing different elements M in the system of M/SiO2 (M:Si=1:1000, molar ratio) or Cs/M/SiO2 (Cs : M : Si=10:1:1000, molar ratio) were prepared and screened for the oxidation of ethane by use of oxygen as oxidant. It has been found that the elementsM(M=V, Bi, In, Ga, P, Zr, Zn, La) can give good aldehyde yields in the Cs/M/SiO2 system. The promoting effects of different alkali metals (Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs) on the catalytic performance of V/SiO2 (V:Si=1:1000) in ethane oxidation were investigated. Among them, cesium gave the best promoting effect on V/SiO2 for aldehyde formation. The presence of alkali metals increases the basicity and neutralizes the acid site of catalyst; thus it enhances the selectivity to acetaldehyde and controls the formation of formaldehyde. Increase in basicity promotes the cross-aldol condensation of acetaldehyde and formaldehyde to give acrolein. The pathway for acrolein formation is mainly through the cross-aldol condensation of acetaldehyde and formaldehyde over Cs/V/SiO2 catalysts.

Al2O3 and SiO2 were used to load chromium oxides with incipient-wetness impregnation method. These supported chromia catalysts were evaluated for the dealkylation of C10+ heavy aromatics in hydrogen flow and were characterized with BET, XRD, FT-IR, UV–vis DRS and H2-TPR techniques. The results indicate that the catalytic activity of supported chromia catalysts on SiO2 is higher than that of on Al2O3. Structural characterization results show that surface reduced CrOx species are the active sites for hydrodealkylation of C10+ heavy aromatics. (C10+ heavy aromatics denote the aromatics whose carbon numbers are equal to or greater than 10.) The structural models of CrOx species on the Al2O3 or SiO2 support surface were also proposed.

The La1-xKxMnO3 perovskite-type oxides whose sizes were in nanometric range were prepared by the citric acid-ligated method. The structures of these perovskite-type oxides were examined by XRD and FT-IR. The catalytic activity for the combustion of soot particulate was evaluated by a technique of the temperature-programmed reaction. In the LaMnO3 catalyst, the partial substitution of K for La at A-site enhanced the catalytic activity for the combustion of soot particle. In the La1-xKxMnO3 catalysts, the combustion temperature of soot particle decreases with increasing x values. The La1-xKxMnO3 oxides with the substitution quantity between x=0.20 and x=0.25 are good candidate catalysts for the soot particle removal reaction, and the combustion temperature of soot particle is between 285 and 430℃ when the contact of catalysts and soot is loose, and their catalytic activities for the combustion of soot particle are as good as supported Pt catalysts, which is the best catalyst system so far reported for soot combustion under loose contact conditions.

A series of nanopowder Ce–Zr–Pr oxide catalysts were synthesized by a new method which was a low temperature synthesis approach combining rotating evaporation and auto-combustion techniques. The catalysts were characterized by means of XRD, Raman, and SEM. The results showed that the synthesized catalysts had a cubic fluorite structure, nanoparticle sizes and good catalytic activity for soot oxidation.