Owing to the environmental regulations with respect to sulfur content and continuing challenges of finding a suitable catalyst of such impurity, a driving force for the development of more efficient technologies a deep research on new oxidative catalysts is considered an important issue in fuel quality improvement. Thus, the present study shows a novel percent of nano-catalyst with 18% zinc oxide (ZnO) of active component over nano-alumina that has not been reported in the public domain for sulfur removal from kerosene fuel by air (oxidative desulfurization (ODS) method). Where, such percent of the active component on the nano-alumina helps to add one or two atoms of oxygen to sulfur content in the kerosene. The nano-catalyst (ZnO/nano-alumina-particles composite) is prepared by precipitation of zinc oxide and loaded over nano-alumina in one-step. The activity of the prepared catalyst was tested utilizing ODS process of kerosene fuel by air in a batch reactor. A set of experiments were conducted with a wide range of operating conditions, where the reaction temperature was ranged from 150 to 190ºC, the reaction time from 30 to 50 min and the catalyst weight from 0.4 to 1 g. The experimental results showed that the chemical nature of zinc oxides showed higher conversion (70.52%) at reaction temperature of 190 ºC, reaction time of 50 min, and 1 g catalyst weight used in the batch reactor. A kinetic model related to the sulfur removal from kerosene via ODS process in the batch reactor was also investigated in this study for the purpose of estimating the best kinetic parameters of the relevant reactions. The results showed that the prepared catalyst (ZnO over nano-alumina) can be applied confidently to reactor design, operation and control in addition to improve the fuel quality. Following the kinetic model of ODS process, a very well agreement between the experimental and predicted results is obtained. Copyright © 2019 BCREC Group. All rights reserved

Producing an eco-friendly fuel with the least amount of sulfur compounds has been an ongoing issue for petroleum refineries. In this study, bentonite (which is a cheap material and is locally available in abundance) is employed to prepare a nano-silica catalyst with a high surface area to be used for the oxidative desulfurization of kerosene. Two composite catalysts of Fe/silica were supported on CAT-1 (0% HY-zeolite and 100% nano-silica) and CAT-2 (20% HY-zeolite and 80% nano-silica). The activity of the catalysts was evaluated in a batch ODS (oxidative desulfurization) process at temperatures of 30, 60, 90, and 120 °C, a pressure of 1 atm, and a reaction time of 30, 60, 90, and 120 min using 120 L/h of air as the oxidant. The results revealed that the highest total sulfur removal efficiency was 50% and 87.88% for 100% nano-silica (CAT-1) and 80% nano-silica (CAT-2), respectively. The experimental data were then used to construct and validate an accurate mathematical model of the process. The operational parameters for eliminating more than 99% of sulfur and producing eco-friendly fuel were then achieved by using the model. The testing methods for these characterizing materials included X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric examination (TGA), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and surface area (BET). The outcomes indicated that the addition of HY-zeolite increased the activity of the catalyst (CAT-2 > CAT-1).

Oxidative desulfurization process (ODS), enhanced with a novel metal oxide (Ag ions) as an active component over nano-zeolite that has not been reported in the literature, is used here to improve the fuel quality by removing mercaptan (as a model sulfur compound in the light naphtha). Nano-crystalline (nano-support (Nano-zeolite)) composite is prepared by Incipient Wetness Impregnation method loaded with a metal salt to obtain 0.5, 1 and 1.5% of Ag2O3 over Nano-zeolite. The new homemade nano-catalysts (Ag2O3/Nano-zeolite) prepared are characterized by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) (surface area, pore volume and pore size), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis. The ODS process is then used to evaluate the performance of the catalysts for the removal of sulfur at different reaction temperatures (80–140 °C) and reaction times (30–50 min) in a batch reactor using the air as oxidant. 87.4% of sulfur removal has been achieved using 1% silver oxide loaded on Nano zeolite (1% of Ag2O3/Nano-zeolite) giving a clear indication that our newly designed catalyst is highly efficient catalyst in the removal of sulfur compound (mercaptan) from naphtha. A new mechanism of chemical reaction for sulfur removal by oxygen using the new homemade catalyst (Ag2O3/Nano-zeolite) prepared has been suggested in this study. The best kinetic model parameters of the relevant reactions are also estimated in this study using pseudo first order technique based on the experimental results. Copyright © 2021 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).