Abstract: Tetralin hydroconversion process is a complex reaction consisting of the hydrogenation, dehydrogenation, isomerization, ring-opening, alkyl and transalkylation. Unsupported Ni-Mo-W hydroupgrading catalysts were prepared by three different preparation methods (dry mixing, wet mixing, co-gelling), and tetralin was selected as a model compound to evaluate the hydrogenation and selective ring-opening performance of the catalysts. The results show that the catalyst prepared by co-gelling shows higher hydrogenation conversion of tetralin as well as higher selective ring opening and isomerization performance than the other two catalysts. The wet mixing catalyst has a high hydrogenation selectivity and tetralin conversion rate, but lower in isomerization and ring-opening selectivity. The tetralin conversion rate, the isomerization selectivity and the hydrogenation selectivity are low for the dry mixing catalyst. The single molecule mechanism is mainly followed for tetralin hydrogenation and ring-opening reactions over the co-gelling and wet mixing catalyst, inducing less heavy products and coke. The unsupported Ni-Mo-W hydroupgrading catalyst prepared by co-gelling shows the desired dearomatization performance by selective ring opening.