Boosting Hydroisomerization Performance of a Ni/SAPO-11 Catalyst via Enhanced Ni Dispersion

Replacing noble metals with low-cost non-noble metals such as Ni in bifunctional hydroisomerization catalysts remains challenging, as the inevitable agglomeration and sintering of Ni species diminish catalytic activity. Herein, leveraging the strong interaction between Ni and γ-Al 2 O 3, an efficient bifunctional catalyst was constructed by loading Ni onto γ-Al 2 O 3, followed by physical mixing with SAPO-11, enabling highly dispersed and small-sized Ni-species. Comprehensive characterization results demonstrated that γ-Al 2 O 3 significantly reduced the total number of acid sites while increasing the quantity of strong Brønsted acid sites and enlarging the distance between Ni and acid sites. The optimized ratios of Ni/Al 2 O 3 and SAPO-11 (0.5–1.0) exhibited high n -C 12 conversion and iso -C 12 selectivity and an iso -C 12 yield of 76.5%, markedly outperforming Ni/S11 (63.64%) and Ni/S11–Al 2 O 3 (66.64%) and approaching the performance of the benchmark Pt/S11 catalyst (78.01%). The combination of high catalytic efficiency and low cost highlights the Ni/Al 2 O 3 –S11 catalyst as a promising alternative for n -alkane hydroisomerization.