Desulfurization and Denitrogenation Processes to Treat Diesel Using Mo(VI)‐Bipyridine Catalysts
Diana Julião, Ana C. Gomes, Martyn Pillinger, Isabel S. Gonçalves, Salete S. Balula
Abstract
Abstract High efficiency was found for desulfurization and denitrogenation processes to treat diesel using either the hybrid material {[MoO 3 (2,2′‐bipy)][MoO 3 (H 2 O)]} n or the octanuclear complex [Mo 8 O 22 (OH) 4 (di‐ t Bu‐bipy) 4 ] (2,2′‐bipy = 2,2′‐bipyridine, di‐ t Bu‐bipy = 4,4′‐di‐ tert ‐butyl‐2,2′‐bipyridine) as catalysts. These processes were employed in a single procedure to simultaneously remove sulfur (dibenzothiophene, 4‐methyldibenzothiophene, and 4,6‐dimethyldibenzothiophene) and nitrogen (indole and quinoline) compounds from diesel. A reaction time of two hours was sufficient to achieve at least 99.9 % S removal and 97 % N removal. Furthermore, the catalytic systems presented a high capacity to be reused/recycled for consecutive desulfurization/denitrogenation cycles.