Synergetic effects of nano-boehmite and Y nano-zeolite on catalytic cracking of residue oil

Abstract Boehmite nanoparticles and NaY nanozeolite were synthesized by co-precipitation and hydrothermal methods respectively and characterized by XRD, FT-IR, TG-DTA, BET and SEM techniques. XRD and BET analyses demonstrated the formation of boehmite nanoparticles with a surface area of 350 m²/g and NaY nanozeolite with high crystallinity and surface area of 957 m²/g. In order to evaluate the effect of the content of the mesoporous boehmite nanoparticles on the catalytic performance of the Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracking (RFCC) catalyst, alumina active matrix-based and silica inactive matrix-based catalysts were prepared. Results actually demonstrated that the acidity of zeolite composition improved with the addition of boehmite nanoparticles. On the other hand, in equal zeolite content, the alumina active matrix-based catalyst possessed higher acidity (NC₃₀B₂₀, 3.44 mmol NH₃/g catalyst) than the silica inactive matrix-based catalyst (NC₃₀B₀, 2.31 mmol NH₃/g catalyst). Microactivity tests (MAT) demonstrated that in equal zeolite content, active matrix-based catalysts exhibited higher catalytic performance than the inactive matrix-based catalysts. Moreover, the active matrix-based catalyst (NC₃₀B₂₀) with a surface area of 370 m²/g showed the optimum catalytic performance in RFCC process. The synthesized NC₃₀B₂₀ catalyst with 20 wt. % mesoporous boehmite nanoparticles as an active matrix and 30 wt. % zeolite nanoparticles balanced with silica had the highest gasoline yield (42 wt. %) and gasoline selectivity (65.1 wt. %). The catalytic performance test results showed that in equal MAT conversion (almost 64 wt. %), the synthesized NC₃₀B₂₀ catalyst had higher catalytic performance than the commercial catalyst.