A low-temperature and template-free synthesis method was developed to prepare MoS2 nanotubes by sulfidation of bulk NiMo oxide. The ex-situ gas-phase low-pressure sulfidation of NiMo oxide resulted in multi-walled MoS2 nanotubes and NixSy spheres. Meanwhile, the in-situ liquid phase high-pressure sulfidation led to nanotubes formation by self-assembly of MoS2 nano-bricks vertically oriented towards the outer surface as observed by HRTEM analysis. The sulfided catalysts were evaluated for the hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT) in a batch reactor. Catalyst sulfided under ex-situ conditions exhibited good performance (76 % DBT conversion with an initial reaction rate 24 × 10−8 molDBT.(gCat.s)-1). The in-situ sulfided catalyst showed an outstanding activity (99 % DBT conversion with an initial reaction rate 105 × 10−8 molDBT.(gCat.s)-1). Which means that the in-situ sulfidation method dramatically increased the initial reaction rate by four times. A mathematical expression (RKC equation) was derived to correlate the size of the regular hexagonal MoS2 nanoparticles with its activity, for which the experimental results were validated.
