Catalyst screening for oxidative desulfurization using hydrogen peroxide

Oxidation of a mixture of thiophene, benzothiophene and dibenzothiophene with hydrogen peroxide using supported Pd, Cr₂O₃, unsupported manganese oxides and a commercial Co-Mo/Al₂O₃ as catalysts has been studied in a mixture of hexadecane and acetonitrile. Based solely on the conversion of each organic sulfur compound, the ranking of catalyst efficiency found was: supported Pd > Cr₂O₃ ≈ manganese oxides ≈ Co-Mo/Al₂O₃. The influence of the calcination temperature on synthesized manganese oxides was also investigated. Mn₃O₄, amorphous manganese compounds, Mn₂O₃ and MnO₂ showed a similar catalytic activity independent of the hydrogen peroxide concentration. According to these preliminary results, it seemed that the catalyzed decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide competes with the oxidative desulfurization, however, at short reaction time (10 min) conversions at around 60-70% of thiophene were reached.