Synthesis of Al‐Containing Spherical Mesocellular Silica Foams with Different Pore Sizes and Their Applications as Catalyst Supports for Hydrodesulfurization of Dibenzothiophene

Abstract In the present work, a series of Al‐containing spherical mesostructured cellular silica foams (SMCFs) with different ultra‐large pore sizes were successfully synthesized by simply adjusting the mass ratio (x) of the swelling agent 1,3,5‐trimethylbenzene (TMB) to P123. The as‐synthesized Al‐SMCFs‐x were utilized as NiMo catalyst supports for the hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene. The characterization results showed that, compared with other studied NiMo/Al‐SMCFs‐x catalysts, the NiMo/Al‐SMCFs‐1.25 catalyst exhibited higher sulfidation degree, higher dispersions of Ni and Mo species, shorter length, and lower stacking number of MoS 2 slabs. It was also found that the NiMo/Al‐SMCFs‐1.25 catalyst possessed suitable physicochemical parameters [i.e., ultra‐large pore size (27.5 nm), high surface area (383 m 2 g −1 ), and large pore volume (1.34 cm 3 g −1 ), resulting in the formation of more type II active sites with more brim active sites. Consequently, the NiMo/Al‐SMCFs‐1.25 catalyst displayed outstanding catalytic performance for the hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene.