On November 24, 2017 the project “Commercial application tests of highly active catalyst RS-2100 for superdeep hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of diesel”,jointly undertaken by the SINOPEC Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (RIPP), the SINOPEC Yangzi Petrochemical Company (YPC), Ltd., and the Changling Catalyst Branch Company, has passed the technical appraisal organized by the SINOPEC Science and Technology Division.

To cope with the production of diesel fuel meeting the national V standard for motor vehicle emissions, RIPP has successfully developed the novel high-activity and high-stability CoMo type catalyst RS-2100 for superdeep HDS of diesel by using a novel support having better performance and channels accessible to reactants,an optimized precursor of active phase, and a highly dispersed active phase suited to the CoMo metallic system.

Compared to the catalyst RS-2000, the catalyst RS-2100 has achieved a reduction of packing density by 17%, a boost of HDS activity by 21%, and an increase of catalytic stability by 36%, along with a cost reduction on unit volume of materials by 40%. The pilot tests have revealed that upon using a mixed feed composed of a straight-run diesel commingled with 20%—70% of secondarily processed diesel under conditions covering a partial hydrogen pressure of 6.4 MPa and a volumetric space velocity of 1.0—1.5 h-1the catalyst RS-2100 has good adaptability to feedstock for producing the ultralow sulfur diesel containing less than 10 μg/g of sulfur.The commercial application test of the catalyst RS-2100 in the 3.7 Mt/a series-II diesel HDS unit at the Yangzi Petrochemical Company has revealed that the deactivation rate of the catalyst RS-2100 is 0.7 °C/month during the long-cycle smooth production of the diesel fuel meeting the national V standard for motor vehicle emissions to demonstrate its outstanding catalytic stability.

The catalyst RS-2100, which has been granted three Chinese patents with independent intellectual property rights, is now being applied in commercial scale in 15 domestic diesel HDS units with its performance reaching the international advanced level.