Facile fabrication of molybdenum-containing ordered mesoporous silica induced deep desulfurization in fuel

Herein, functional molybdenum-containing ordered mesoporous silica (Mo-OMS) were successfully fabricated from imidazole and polyoxometalate-based ionic liquids, and employed for the removal of organosulfur compounds. The composition and structure of as-prepared materials were characterized in detail by FT-IR, Raman, DRS, low and wide-angle XRD, nitrogen adsorption-desorption and TEM. The hybrid materials exhibited a high dispersion of molybdenum species and good activity on removing organosulfur compounds without any organic solvents as extractants. Various effects such as the amount of samples, O/S molar ratio, temperature, types of sulfur-containing substrate on the sulfur removal were also investigated. Under optimal conditions, dibenzothiophene (DBT) could be completely removed in 50 min. Moreover, the sulfur removal of reaction system could still reach 91% after recycling for nine times. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.