This work presents the hydrothermal synthesis of Dandelion flower-like bimetallic oxide for the hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT). The synthesized oxide and respective activated catalysts were characterized by Fourier transform infrared- attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) spectroscopy, nitrogen physisorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanned electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The oxide sample exhibited a flower-like core-shell structure (TEM) and suitable BET surface area for the intended application, (133.4 m2.g−1). The FTIR-ATR analysis confirmed the decomposition of the organic precursor in the synthesized catalyst. Two activation methods were followed for the oxide sample sulfidation, namely, in-situ high-pressure sulfidation and ex-situ low-pressure sulfidation. Also, the TEM micrographs of sulfided catalysts showed that the core-shell structure prevailed. The HDS of DBT activity results showed that catalyst sulfided under high-pressure resulted in enhanced activity, 2.4 times than the low-pressure sulfided catalyst, owing to the high degree of sulfidation (XPS) and the presence of short/curved MoS2 slabs (XRD & TEM). The activity of the df-NiMo catalyst was compared with the trimetallic NiYMo catalyst.
