Vanadium and titanium oxide supported on mesoporous CMK-3 as new catalysts for oxidative desulfurization.

Abstract

Diesel emissions contribute to environmental issues associated to sulfur oxides released during the combustion process of fuels. Ultra-low-sulfur-diesel (ULSD) is diesel with substantially lowered sulfur content. Many countries have established regulations to restrict the S content in petroleum products to be 15 ppm and zero emission is even expected1 . Alternatively, oxidative desulfurization (ODS) provides selective removal of those refractory sulfur compounds at proper temperatures and pressure and is capable to eliminate most refractory sulfur compounds in HDS. This is the process wherein dibenzothiophene derivatives are converted to their corresponding sulfone, which could be easily separated from the oil. Therefore, ODS has a great potential to become a complementary process to traditional HDS in the production of deeply desulfurized diesel fuels. In view of the recent studies, Ti and V oxides have demonstrated to improve S-compounds oxidation2,3. In this work we evaluate vanadium and titanium-based catalysts supported over a mesoporous carbon with large surface area (CMK-3) in the ODS of dibenzothiophene as a model sulfur compound.