Deep oxidative desulfurization of model fuel catalyzed by polyoxometalates anchored on amine-functionalized ceria doped MCM-41 under molecular oxygen

The novel composite materials of the vanadium-substituted Keggin-type polyoxometalates anchored on the amine-functionalized Ce-MCM-41 (POM/APTES-CeM) are successfully synthesized and fully characterized by FT-IR, XRD, N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, SEM, TEM, EDX, and XPS. The catalytic activities of these new catalysts are evaluated for oxidative desulfurization of the model fuel with molecular oxygen as oxidant. Meanwhile, the optimal reaction conditions are investigated, including loading amount of POM, catalyst mass, reaction temperature, agitation rate and oxygen amount. The result manifests that PW9V3/APTES-CeM-50 exhibits the highest catalytic activity with a desulfurization performance of 99.26 % as well as a brilliant reusability that catalytic efficiency with slight diminution after used consecutively for eight times. Moreover, the kinetic study displays that the oxidative desulfurization process is verified to pseudo-first-order model.