Investigation on Desulfurization of Middle Distillates Using Carbon Based Nanoporous Materials

Sulfuric compounds in oil derivatives cause the production of air pollutants, acid rain formation, corrosion of metallic instrument and poisoning of catalysts in the refineries [1]. Among different derivatives of sulfuric compounds, 4-methyldibenzothiophene and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene and other alkylate derivatives of them are the most resistant ones which will remain in oil cuts even after refinery processes and should separate from liquid fuels, especially gasoil and fuel oil [2]. Desulfurization using suitable absorbents is one of the best among other processes and is widely used in oil industry in recent year [3]. In the 21th century the synthesis of non-oxide materials with mesoporous structure, introduce a new category of materials based on carbon. In CMKn, n consists of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 which named after the silicate template source [4]. In this research, CMK-3 has been synthesized successfully and its activity towards DBT elimination from a model compound has been investigated. Functionalization of primary silicate mesopours compound (SBA-3) as hard template has been done with Zn and industrial sucrose was the carbonic source. Appropriate metal salts (M= Zn, Ni, Fe, La, Mn, Co, Cd) using incipient wet impregnation would then have been used. After calcination, the bi metallic structure have been characterized using XRD, FTIR, SEM, TEM and BET. The experiment conditions such as rate of stirring, PH, ionic strength, temperature, absorbent amount and time of contact on the sulfur elimination has been examined. The results showed the astonishing improvement in comparison with mono metallic CMK-3. The absorbent temperature decreased by 20°c and absorption yield reaches about 85%.