Surface chemistry and catalytic properties of VOX/Ti-MCM-41 catalysts for dibenzothiophene oxidation in a biphasic system

Abstract

A series of vanadium oxide supported on Ti-MCM-41 catalysts was synthesized via the incipient impregnation method by varying the vanadia loading from 5wt% to 10, 15, 20 and 25wt%. These catalysts were characterized by a variety of advanced techniques for investigating their crystalline structure, textural properties, and surface chemistry information including surface acidity, reducibility, vanadium oxidation states, and morphological features. The catalytic activities of the catalysts were evaluated in a biphasic reaction system for oxidative desulfurization (ODS) of a model diesel containing 300ppm of dibenzothiophene (DBT) where acetonitrile was used as extraction solvent and H2O2 as oxidant. ODS activity was found to be proportional to the V5+/(V4++V5+) values of the catalysts, indicating that the surface vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) was the active phase. Reaction temperature would influence significantly the ODS efficiency; high temperature, i.e., 80°C, would lead to low ODS reaction due to the partial decomposition of oxidant. All the catalysts contained both Lewis and Brønsted acid sites but the former was predominant. The catalysts with low vanadia loading (5 or 10 wt%V2O5) had many Lewis acid sites and could strongly adsorb DBT molecule via the electron donation/acceptance action which resulted in an inhibition for the reaction of DBT with the surface peroxometallic species. The catalyst with high vanadia loading (25wt%V2O5/Ti-MCM-41) showed the highest catalytic activity and could remove 99.9% of DBT at 60°C within 60min.