A synthesis of a Fe₂O₃-supported composite for rapid oxidative desulfurization production of environmentally friendly fuel in an OBR

The modern world requires maintaining a healthy environment to be suitable for life. It is also important to produce clean fuel. Therefore, ultra-deep removal of sulfur-containing compounds from diesel fuels requires the utilization of new desulfurization techniques. This work represents supports prepared via boehmite, γ-alumina, and modified γ-alumina–anatase–titanium oxide as a highly porous material. It is derived from chemical materials and loaded with active metal. Iron oxide over composite support is newly prepared and evaluated experimentally. Then, the concentration of iron (5%) is loaded to composite support to design the newly composite mesoporous nano-catalyst. Several tests have been carried out to evaluate the properties of boehmite, γ-Al₂O_3, modified γ-Al₂O₃–TiO₂, and 5%Fe₂O₃/γ-Al₂O₃–TiO₂. These tests included FESEM-EDX, Mapping, FTIR, XRD, and BET. A novel oscillation baffled reactor (OBR) with helical baffled and oscillation reactor (OR, un-baffled) for oxidative desulfurization is developed and utilized here in order to obtain ultra-deep desulfurization for real diesel fuel based on a newly mesopores composite-catalyst. Hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid were used to produce peracetic acid, which is represented as an oxidant. The OBR and OR were operated over a range of reaction temperatures from (50 to 80) °C, residence times from (3 to 9) min, oscillation amplitudes from (2 to 8) mm, and oscillation frequencies from (0.5 to 2) Hz. The experimental results showed that sulfur conversion in the OBR was significantly higher than in conventional processes under ambient conditions (temperature approximately near room temperature and atmospheric pressure). The rapid sulfur removal was 98.42%, observed at 8 mm, 2 Hz, and only needed 9 min of residence time. At the same time, the removal in OR at optimal conditions was 34.35%. A development design of OBR needed only 9 min to achieve high sulfur removal from fuel compared to previous studies, which required an oxidation time of at least half-hour or more to achieve the same or lower removal efficiency.