Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite original research or review articles to a Special Issue of ChemEngineering entitled “Advances in Hydrotreating Catalyst Synthesis for Fuel and Chemical Production Processes”. Catalytic hydrotreatment is an essential refining step in producing fuels and chemicals in petroleum-based refineries. It also plays a crucial role in the development of biomass-based refineries, as hydrotreatment reactions are commonly utilized to limit the presence of nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, aromatics, and olefins. The efficiency and acceptability of any fuel produced from either fossil or renewable sources depends on the level of heteroatoms contaminants within it. The hydrotreating reaction can convert bulk fuels to high-calorie and environmentally acceptable ones. Therefore, the cost of the hydrotreating reaction makes a difference when considering the overall process. Industrialists and refiners need better, cost-efficient catalysts with the highest possible activity to obtain the desired boost in performance and minimize the operating cost.

Traditionally, supported metal catalysts, either alumina or silica-based catalysts, are used for the hydrotreating and hydrocracking processes. However, these suffer from severe catalyst deactivation due to coke formation and metal deposition in the pores. Dispersed metal catalysts, mainly metal sulfides, show promising results compared to supported metal catalysts due to their small-sized nanoparticles. These catalysts have high active site exposure tolerance and low diffusion resistance to large-molecule hydrocarbons. These characteristics help limit coke formation and promote high conversion rates. However, these catalysts’ performance is greatly dependent on the structure of their precursors, and they are also costly. Therefore, designing low-cost precursors with suitable structures is desirable for effective hydrotreating and hydrocracking industrial applications.

This Special Issue aims to encourage researchers to address recent progress in hydrotreating catalysts’ (supported and unsupported) formulation, characterizations, and reaction pathways for the fuel and chemical production processes. The submissions of studies on advanced synthesis methods and characterization techniques is highly encouraged.

Dr. Kirtika Kohli
Dr. Ravindra Prajapati
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. ChemEngineering is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• catalytic hydrotreatment
• heterogeneous catalysis
• catalytic hydrocracking
• catalyst deactivation
• catalyst characterization
• dispersed catalysts
• renewable fuels
• renewable chemicals