Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.51, No.1, 147-157, 2012
Kinetic Study and Optimization of Oxidative Desulfurization of Benzothiophene Using Mesoporous Titanium Silicate-1 Catalyst
The oxidative desulfurization (ODS) of benzothiophene (BT) in isooctane as a model fuel with 30% aqueous H2O2 was studied using three different titanium silicate (TS) zeolites, synthesized mesoporous TS-1, synthesized mesoporous titanium beta, and commercial TS-1 catalyst, which were found to give 85.6, 45.74, and 25.31% conversions, respectively. Therefore, mesoporous TS-1 was selected as the catalyst for ODS of BT. Reaction time, temperature, catalyst loading, and molar ratio of H2O2:S were selected as the pertinent parameters for the optimization of conversion based on the Box-Behnken design. The predicted maximum conversion was observed to be 89.9% at a temperature of 60 degrees C, catalyst loading of 0.064 g, and mole ratio of BT and H2O2 of 0.209. An empirical kinetic model was used to fit the rate data. The activation energy was found to be 25.20 kJ/mol.