Investigation of Performance of Ni / Clinoptilolite Nanoadsorbents in Desulfurization of Gas Oil: Experimental Design and Modeling

The removal of sulfur compounds from petroleum is extremely necessary for industrial and environmental reasons. Sulfur in transportation fuels is a major air pollution source. In this work, the efficiency of nanostructured Ni-clinoptilolite adsorbent was investigated in the removal of sulfur from gas oil. For this purpose, the design of experiments was performed by selecting effective factors in desulfurization process. Response surface methodology was selected to model the desulfurization process. Ni-containing nanoadsorbents were prepared by a wet-impregnation method. Gas oil model containing 300 ppmW [M. N.1] sulfur was prepared by dissolving a calculated amount of dibenzothiophene (DBT) in n-decane. The concentration of DBT in n-decane was determined by UV-Visible spectrophotometer. The results revealed that sulfur removal extremely depended on the amount of metal and the nature of both metal and support. 5% Ni/support adsorbent resulted in higher sulfur removal efficiency. The optimum ratio of H2O2 to gas oil in the studied conditions was in the range of 5% (v/v) and 240 minutes for the best desulfurization performance during the process.