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Zeolites offer high selectivity, high capacity for sulfur removal
Zeolite Y containing Cu+ or Ag+ ions has been found to adsorb aromatic sulfur compounds selectively from commercial fuels at ambient temperature and pressure. The new sorbents could help refineries meet strict new U.S. air-quality regulations that will take effect within three years. AUTHORS, report that the sorbents can reduce the sulfur content of a commercial diesel fuel from 430 to less than 0.2 ppm by weight. Each gram of the sorbent has the capacity to produce 34 cm3 of clean diesel fuel. "Our sorbent is not only more sulfur-selective" than previously reported sorbents, the researchers point out, but it also has a much higher sulfur capacity (by a factor of more than 40). The new zeolites use complexation to selectively bind thiophene and its derivatives--compounds that are not efficiently removed by the conventional high-temperature hydrodesulfurization process. In the thiophene complexation shown, blue atoms are Cu(I) and yellow atoms are sulfur. The team produces the sorbents by ion exchange of NaY zeolite with Ag+ or Cu2+. MAIN AUTHOR is now working with an industrial partner to commercialize the sorbents, which can be regenerated.
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