Metal‐organic frameworks for highly efficient adsorption of dibenzothiophene from liquid fuels

Abstract

By taking desulfurization of liquid fuels as a demonstrative example, a bottom‐up selection was performed to find the metal‐organic frameworks (MOF)‐type adsorbents with highly efficient adsorption performance of large molecules. Through carefully analyzing the adsorption mechanism for typical S‐heterocyclic compounds like dibenzothiophene (DBT), PCN‐10 was selected in consideration of the simultaneous inclusion of several kinds of interactions in the framework. Experimental results demonstrate that this MOF exhibits extraordinary high DBT adsorption capacity (75.24 mg S g−1), showing record uptake among all the reported porous materials for the removal of thiophenicsulfur from fuels (below 1000 ppmwS), to the best of our knowledge. Moreover, the removal rate for the low sulfur concentration (50 ppmwS) can reach beyond 99%. This strategy can be conveniently extended to the screening and design of MOFs for the efficient removal of other important large guest molecules. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 4491–4496, 2016

Dynamic catalytic adsorptive desulfurization of real diesel over ultra‐stable and low‐cost silica gel‐supported TiO2

“…As a complement to hydrotreating, adsorption desulfurization (ADS) of diesel offers an exciting potential as it enables the removal of the resided trace amount of refractory DBTs that are difficult to be hydrotreated in diesel to proceed in a selective fashion while under ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, where the adsorbents play the key role . Reported desulfurization adsorbents include π‐complexation sorbent, reduced metal, activated carbon, boron nitride, activated alumina, metal organic frameworks, and so forth. ADS through weak chemical bonds (generally stronger than van der Waals interactions) or chemical bonds were exploited.…”

Tungsten Nitride, Well‐Dispersed on Porous Carbon: Remarkable Catalyst, Produced without Addition of Ammonia, for the Oxidative Desulfurization of Liquid Fuel

“…[1,2] Therefore, the thiophenics that occur in crude fuel should be removed properly before utilization/commercialization. So far, hydrodesulfurization, [2] biodesulfurization, [2] adsorption, [1,[3][4][5] and oxidative desulfurization (ODS) [6][7][8] are the widely used/ studied processes to remove the thiophenics from crude fuel. Recently, ODS attracts much interest from researchers because of the simple operation and very high desulfurization efficiency.…”

High‐performance adsorptive desulfurization by ternary hybrid boron carbon nitride aerogel

“…Currently, the adsorption desulfurization technology is emerging as an attractive candidate for the sulfide treatment and can be applied after heavy oil cracking (as shown in Scheme 1). 1 As the pivotal unit, many kinds of adsorbents, such as zeolites, 9,10 mesoporous silica, 11‐13 metal oxides, 14,15 metal–organic frameworks, 16,17 and carbons, 4,18‐21 have been developed and investigated for the adsorption of aromatic organosulfur compounds from fuel. Although some progress has been made, there are still challenging issues existing in these adsorbents mentioned above, for instance, insufficient capacities, weak surface interaction, inferior stability, and so on 19 .…”