(187c) Catalytic Adsorptive Desulfurization (CADS) of Diesel Using Industrial-Grade MCM-41

The catalytic adsorptive desulfurization (CADS) has been developed as a promising approach for ultra-deep desulfurization of diesel with low energy consumption (Ren, X.; Miao, G.; Xiao, Z.; Ye, F.; Li, Z.; Wang, H.H.; Xiao, J. Catalytic Adsorptive Desulfurization Using TiO₂/SBA-15 under Mild Conditions. Fuel, 2016, 174, 118-125; Ren, X.; Liu, Z.; Dong, L.; Miao, G.; Liao, N.; Li, Z.; Xiao, J. Dynamic Catalytic Adsorptive Desulfurization of Real Diesel over Ultra-stable and Low-cost Silica Gel Supported TiO2. AIChE J., 2018, doi:10.1002/aic.16055). In this work, we report our recent interesting experimental results on the effective CADS of diesel using economic industrial-grade MCM-41, despite of the ineffectiveness of reagent-grade MCM-41 at all. The CADS of industrial-grade MCM-41 shows high desulfurization capacity and selectivity, similar as those of our previously reported TiO₂/SBA-15. The adsorbent was characterized by FTIR, XRD and N₂ adsorption, and further clues on CADS mechanism using industrial-grade MCM-41was under further investigation in our lab. Effect of O/S, CADS temperature and selectivity were optimized in batch reactor. Spent adsorbents was regenerated by solvent wash followed with air oxidative treatment. Stable desulfurization performance of the adsorbent in 9 consecutive adsorption-regeneration cycles suggested the active sites on the adsorbents can be fully regenerated stably. The discovery in this work provides a facile route using the low-cost industrial-grade MCM-41 directly for CADS with superior desulfurization capacity and remarkable stability, which paves an effective and economic way for ultra-deep desulfurization of real diesel with low energy consumption.