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

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 m ² /g and NaY nanozeolite with high crystallinity and surface area of 957 m ² /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 (NC ₃₀ B ₂₀ , 3.44 mmol NH ₃ /g catalyst) than the silica inactive matrix-based catalyst (NC ₃₀ B ₀ , 2.31 mmol NH ₃ /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 (NC ₃₀ B ₂₀ ) with a surface area of 370 m ² /g showed the optimum catalytic performance in RFCC process. The synthesized NC ₃₀ B ₂₀ 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 NC ₃₀ B ₂₀ catalyst had higher catalytic performance than the commercial catalyst.