The conversion performance of silica supported iron sulfur catalyst on Merey vacuum residue was evaluated in a slurry bed reactor.The influence of hydrogenation catalysts on the composition and structural transformation of asphaltene in Merey vacuum residue was studied using elemental analysis,GPC,XPS,1H-NMR,FT-IR,XRD and other methods,and the mechanism of inhibition of asphaltene coking transformation by hydrogenation catalysts was analyzed.The results show that with the increase of catalyst hydrogenation ability,the content of N and S in asphaltenes decreases continuously,and hydro-desulfurization reaction is the easiest to take place,the H/C ratio,the average alkyl chain length(n)and the condensation index(HAU/CA)increase,while the aromaticity index(fA),the average height of the stack of aromatic sheets perpendicular to the plane of the sheet(Lc),the diameter of aromatic sheet(La)and the average number of aromatic sheets(M)decrease.This is mainly due to the fact that cata-lysts with strong hydrogenation ability can provide more hydrogen free radicals,causing the condensed ar-omatic rings in the asphaltene structure to undergo hydrogenation,resulting in longer side chains that hin-der the formation of larger sized nanoaggregates in asphaltene,thereby inhibiting the precipitation and transformation of asphaltene from the oil phase to coke.