Fabrication of promoted TiO2 nanotubes with superior catalytic activity against TiO2 nanoparticles as the catalyst of oxi-desulfurization process

• Titania nanotubes were synthesized from titania nanoparticles with high specific surface area.
• TNT is more effective catalysis in ODS reaction of refractory sulfur compounds.
• Cu promoted TNT is a stable and high reactive catalyst in ODS reaction of DBT.

TiO2 nanoparticles (TNP) were converted to TiO2 nanotubes (TNT) and investigated as the catalyst for oxidative desulfurization of dibenzothiophene. The TNT was promoted with Cu (Cu-TNT) to increase the ODS efficiency. The textural and structural properties of catalysts were characterized and confirmed by XRD, FESEM, EDS, TEM, FTIR and BET analysis. The maximum conversion over TNT was achieved at the temperature = 326.6 K, oxidant/DBT = 13.9 mol/mol and catalyst/fuel = 10 g/l. At the optimum condition, TNT has shown 10% higher efficiency compared with TNP catalyst. The promoted TNT with less that 1 wt% Cu accelerated the ODS rate of reaction with 10% excess conversion, to achieve 98% conversion of DBT.

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