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The present work is an experimental investigation of commercial diesel fuel liquid desulfurization via adsorption under mild conditions. The sorbent employed was a commercial high surface area activated carbon (AC) and studies involved both lab-and pilot-scale experiments performed in dedicated fixed bed setups. Under lab-scale conditions, maximum sulfur removal measured exceeded 90%, while according to breakthrough curves obtained the total sulfur content remained below 2 ppmw for up to 20-22 ml processed diesel/g AC. Process scaling-up by a factor of 15 showed a moderate negative effect, with the respective breakthrough fuel amount (total sulfur ≤ 2 ppmw) being approximately 15-17 processed fuel/g sorbent. Several sorbent regeneration strategies were studied under lab-scale conditions. The one with the highest restoration of initial (i.e. fresh state) AC performance involved heating under vacuum (200 mbara) up to 200 o C and subsequent washing of the material with a binary organic solvent. The amount of solvent required was 50-55 ml /g sorbent. However, even under such conditions, desulfurization performance was only partially restored upon repeated desulfurization/regeneration cycles. From the 2 nd and up to 7 th cycle, desulfurization efficiency of the material was essentially stable but from cycle number 8 and on further performance degradation was identified. Based on fresh/regenerated sorbent post analysis, it was found that cycle-to-cycle degradation was due to gradual decrease of the sorbent's surface area, mainly attributed to residual amounts of diesel-derived species remained in its structure thereby partially blocking its porosity. The main properties of processed fuel remained essentially unaffected, however removal of di-and poly-aromatic compounds was notable.

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