Desulfurization of liquid fuels using aluminum modified mesoporous adsorbent: towards experimental and kinetic investigations

Abstract In this study, a modified mesoporous adsorbent (MSU-S) impregnated by aluminum was used to remove the aromatic sulfur compounds from n-decane as the model fuel. Physical and chemical properties of as-synthesized adsorbent were investigated by XRD (X-Ray Diffraction), SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy), FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy) and BET (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller) method. Adsorptive desulfurization of model fuel was studied through batch and continues processes under mild temperature and normal atmospheric pressure. The equilibrium adsorption was modeled by Langmuir, Temkin, and Freundlich and the kinetics of adsorption was studied through first, second and intraparticle diffusion models. It was figured out that Temkin and the pseudo-second-order model were best fitting the adsorption equilibrium and describing the kinetics, respectively.