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Emerging Trends in Chemical Engineering Review Article

Activated Carbon-Based Adsorptive Desulphurization of Diesel for Ultra-Low Refractory Sulfur Fuel Production

  1. Indra Neel Pulidindi Adjunct faculty, Department of Ear, Nose and Throat, Saveetha Medical College (SMC) and Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (SIMTS), Saveetha Nagar, Thandalam, India
  2. Varadarajan Thirukallam Kanthadai Retired Professor, National Center for Catalysis Research (NCCR), Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
  3. Viswanathan Balasubramanian ✉ Emeritus Professor, National Center for Catalysis Research (NCCR), Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Abstract

The problem of “Diesel desulphurization” needs no introduction. A successful attempt has been made to develop an adsorptive desulphurization process based on activated carbon materials as low cost, environmentally friendly and selective adsorbents for the highly stiff-necked Sulphur containing refractory molecules, namely, the dialkyl dibenxothiophenes (DADBT), especially, the 4, 6 dimethyl dibenzothiophene (4, 6 DMDBT). Removal of such refractory compounds is a major bottle-neck in the classical refinery operation, namely, the hydrodesulphurization (HDS). Using the current innovative adsorptive desulphurization process, operating at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, the refractory Sulphur compounds have been completely removed from the diesel feedstock while significantly bringing down the Sulphur content in the feed from 737 ppm to 118 ppm. The hall-mark of the work is to employ the real diesel feed from the straight-run diesel fraction (SRDF) of the Cauvery Basin Refinery (CBR), Narimanam, Tamil Nadu. Preliminary studies focused on the screening the best sorbent from various activated carbon materials procured from commercial sources, namely, the Calgon carbon and the adsorbent carbon and several others of different mesh sizes. Use of activated carbon materials as sorbent helps to overcome engineering constraints in the process-scaling up, namely, the diffusion constraints and the pressure drops. Preliminary screening studies proved the potential of Calgon carbon from Tianjin and Adsorbent carbon from Tuticorn for the desulphurization application. Subsequently, the aforementioned carbon materials were further fine-tuned for attaining the desired structural, textural and surface functional properties using chemical oxidation with conc. HNO3 treatment followed by physical activation (thermal treatment) under inert (Ar) environment. Such a unique combination of the chemical and physical activation significantly improved the performance of the adsorbent for the desulphurization of the diesel. The nature of the S compounds in the feed and the products is analyzed using gas chromatography coupled with pulsed flame photometer detector (GC-PFPD). The S content in the product diesel after passing through the adsorbent bed was further tested using the X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). Essentially, the stiff-necked refractory Sulphur compounds (DMDBT) were selectively adsorbed by the tailored activated carbon materials using this innovative desulphurization process operated under modest conditions.

Keywords

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