Optimizing oxidative desulfurization of diesel of Tehran Refinery using acid catalysts in the presence of hydrogen peroxide

Subject Areas :

mahsa khorshidnia ¹ , Amir Farshi ² , Manocher Bahmaei ³

1 - MSc Student of Analytical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Assistant Prof. of Department of Chemical Engineering, Research Group Refining, Oil Industry Research, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Associate Prof. of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2023-03-19 Accepted : 2023-07-20 Published : 2023-11-22

Keywords: catalyst, acetic acid, hydrogen peroxide, gasoil, formic acid, Oxidative desulfurization,

Abstract :

In this research, desulfurization of diesel from Tehran Refinery was investigated by oxidation method. To investigate this process, the performance of different advanced oxidation systems (acetic acid/hydrogen peroxide, formic acid/hydrogen peroxide) along with acetonitrile extraction were investigated for desulfurization of diesel fuel with 13370 ppm primary sulfur in a discontinuous reactor. The effect of different operating factors such as molar ratio of acid to sulfur (nacid/ns) (15, 20, and 25), molar ratio of hydrogen peroxide (oxidant) to sulfur (no/ns) (5, 10, and 15), temperature and also reaction time were investigated. Many tests showed that in the optimal conditions for removing sulfur from gas oil with the acetic acid/hydrogen peroxide system, the amount of sulfur reached to 9130 ppm with an efficiency of 31%, and with the formic acid/hydrogen peroxide system, the amount of sulfur reached to 2500 ppm with an efficiency of 81%. Also, the examination of the experiments confirmed this point that it is not possible to completely remove the sulfur from heavy oil fractions such as diesel with normal oxidative desulfurization methods.

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