Selective Denitrogenation of Model Fuel through Adsorption Process

Iron and chromium modified aluminosilicate mesostructure adsorbents (Fe-MSU-S and Cr-MSU-S) were prepared in order to selectively remove nitrogen compounds from model fuel containing quinoline, carbazole, benzothiophene and dibenzothiophene. Characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), low temperature N2 adsorption¿desorption (BET) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) were employed for determining the optimum parameters during the adsorbent synthesis. Fe and Cr impregnation caused a negative effect on mesoporous structure, crystalline phase, and particle shape along with a positive impact on surface acidity which prevailed over negative ones and consequently led to improvement of S/N adsorption compared to MSU-S. The results demonstrated that iron enhanced the quinoline and carbazole uptake of MSU-S by 38.8% and 17.8%, respectively. The maximum adsorption capacities of Cr-MSU-S as compared to pristine MSU-S for quinoline and carbazole were improved by 22.4% and 11.76%, respectively. The adsorption mechanism may be attributed to the acid-base interaction.