The efficient upgrading of vacuum residue to the lighter and more valuable products have attracted importance because of indispensable demand for light oils and stringent environmental protection laws. Slurry phase hydroprocessing is one of the efficient cracking techniques. The transition metal sulfides are considered as very good hydroprocessing catalysts. Molybdenum sulfide and cobalt promoted molybdenum sulfide nanosheets were synthesized by hydrothermal method, characterized by XRD, TEM and BET analysis and used as catalysts for slurry phase upgrading of petroleum vacuum residue. Catalysts efficiency was evaluated on the basis of conversion of vacuum residue, desulfurization, denitrogenation, and distillate yield and coke formation. We found that molybdenum sulfide nanosheets has shown very good results in hydrocracking and processing of vacuum residue and promotion of cobalt on molybdenum sulfide nanosheets has improved its processing activity. The higher activity was due to the efficient movement of nanosheets through the asphaltene molecules and promotion of cobalt. The liquid products were analyzed by elemental analysis, NMR and GC-SIMDIS analysis.
Hydrocracking and processing was also performed over molybdenum sulfide nanosheets by using water instead of hydrogen gas as it is an expensive and dangerous gas. Several reactions were performed by varying operating conditions such as temperature and amount of water. Molybdenum sulfide nanosheets has shown good yield of liquid product.