Green Solvents for Desufurization of diesel and Fuel Oils

The traditional hydrodesulfurization process reduces the sulfur content in fuel oils; however, the complete removal of sulfur compounds is not possible due to technical and economic reasons. Nevertheless, the recent developments in environmental legalization are moving us towards a world of sulfur-free fuel oils and concequently, it becomes necessary to explore alternative desulfurization approaches. Among all different processes, extractive desulfurization appears to be specially promising. Research efforts over the last years focused on finding the most suitable solvent for the desulfurization process. Among different possible solvents, ionic liquids (ILs) have a great potential to be used in the extractive desulfurization process. In this work, the removal of thiophene, which is a sulfuric compound, from simulated fuel using conventional ionic liquids (ILs), and a special group of ILs know as deep eutectic solvents (DES) will be experimentally investigated. DESs are cheaper than conventional ILs and are relatively easier to be synthesized in-house. For a commercial industrial process the recycling of the used solvent is very important. We will use the superoxide ion to react with the extracted sulfur compounds in ILs and DES to give benign products. The used ILs and DES will then be recycled.