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The industrial technology, hydrodesulfurization (HDS) is incapable to meet ultra-low sulfur standard due to the limited treatment on organosulfur compound in diesel fuel. In this paper, catalytic oxidative desulfurization of thiophene, dibenzothiophene and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene using molybdenum oxide based catalyst was investigated. A detailed parametric experimental study; number of coating, calcination temperature, addition of dopant was performed on sulfur removal. It was shown that 4.35% WO3/16.52% MoO3/γ-Al2O3 , calcined at 500°C was successfully removed 92.5% of thiophene, 100% of DBT and 100% of 4,6-DMDBT in model diesel at short reaction time and lower temperature.

The presence of naphthenic acids in crude oils has caused a major corrosion problem to the production equipment, storage and transport facilities in the petroleum industry. The level of acidity of crude oil was determined by the value of Total Acid Number (TAN) in the oil samples. Two types of crude: Petronas Penapisan Melaka Heavy Crude and Petronas Penapisan Melaka Light Crude were studied. Various parameters studied were the amount of chemical dosing, type of catalyst, different catalyst calcination temperatures, and catalyst ratio of basic metal and dopant. The basic chemical used was ammonia solution in ethylene glycol (NH3-EG) with a concentration range of 100-1000 mg/L. The best experimental condition for the possible TAN for the two samples is 1000 mg/L of NH3-EG, and the catalyst reaction must be in the range of 35-40°C. Cu/Mg (10:90)/Al2O3 catalyst successfully reduced TAN in Heavy Crude for about 84.8% while for Light Crude, TAN was reduced 66.7% with the aids of Ni/Mg (10:90)/Al2O3 catalyst. Increase concentration of basic chemical, reduced the total acid number value of both crude oil.