Comprehensive two-dimensional gas
chromatography (GC × GC)
is a powerful technique for analyzing mixtures of hundreds of hydrocarbons.
In the context of fuel upgrading through selective ring opening, we
propose a methodology for GC × GC analysis of complex mixtures
resulting from the hydroprocessing of a single model gas oil compound,
decalin, over two different types of bifunctional catalysts based
on a transition-metal sulfide (NiWS on amorphous silica–alumina)
or a noble metal (Ir on La,Na–Y zeolite). The reactions lead
to several products families, the dominant ones being ring-opening
products (ROPs) and skeletal-isomerization products (SkIPs). First,
it is shown that the ROP distribution can be characterized in terms
of isomerization degree by using the cumulative distribution function
of the GC × GC (GC Image) software. Second, in a more quantitative
approach, the products families have been subdivided into chemical
groups, according to the isomerization degrees of the individual compounds,
which were almost all tentatively identified by two-dimensional gas
chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC × GC-MS) through
the use of literature data. This allows us to thoroughly analyze the
influence of the catalyst nature and the presence of H2S in the reactant feed on the products distribution, and thereby
gain insight into the mechanism of decalin hydroconversion over bifunctional
catalysts. In particular, it is shown that metal sulfidation suppresses
the metal-catalyzed C–C hydrogenolysis pathway at the benefit
of undesirable acid-catalyzed isomerization steps. The methodologic
work presented here for decalin is believed to be applicable to other
bicyclic (naphthenic or aromatic) compounds.