Design of new nano-catalysts and digital basket reactor for oxidative desulfurization of fuel: experiments and modelling

Abstract

This study was focused on developing a new catalyst using metal oxide (10 %Mn) over Nano- activated Carbon (Nano-AC) particles and designing a new reactor (digital basket reactor, DBR) for the sulfur removal from kerosene oil via oxidative desulfurization (ODS). The new homemade Nano-catalyst was prepared by utilizing impregnation process and was characterized by SEM, EDX, BET, and FTIR techniques. The performance of ODS process under moderate operating conditions was significantly enhanced by the application of the new catalyst and the new reactor. The results showed that 94 % of the sulfur could be achieved at oxidation temperature of 80 ºC, oxidation time of 35 min and agitation rate of 750 rpm. The reactivity of catalyst was examined after four consecutive ODS cycles under the optimal experimental parameters and the used catalyst showed excellent stability based on oxidation efficiency. The spent catalyst was treated by methanol, ethanol and iso-octane solvents for regenerated it, and the result proved that iso-octane carried out the maximum regeneration performance. An optimization method depending on minimizing the sum of the squared error among the experimental and model predicted data of ODS technology was employed to evaluate the optimal kinetic model parameters of the reaction system. The ODS process model was able to predict the results obtained experimentally for a wide range of conditions very well by absolute average errors<5 %.