Yes / In this paper, oxidative desulfurization (ODS) process is studied for the purpose of removing the sulfur components from light gas oil (LGO) via experimentation and process modeling. A recently developed (by the authors) copper and nickel oxide based composite nano-catalyst is used in the process. The ODS experiments are conducted in a batch reactor and air is used as an oxidizer under moderate operation conditions. Determination of the kinetic parameters with high accuracy is necessary of the related chemical reactions to develop a helpful model for the ODS operation giving a perfect design of the reactor and process with high confidence. High conversion of 92% LGO was obtained under a reaction temperature of 413 K and reaction time of 90 min for synthesized Cu Ni /HY nano-catalyst. Here model based optimization technique incorporating experimental data is used to estimate such parameters. Two approaches (linear and non-linear) are utilized to estimate the best kinematic parameters with an absolute error of less than 5% between the predicted and the experimental results. An environmentally friendly fuel is regarded the main goal of this study, therefore the optimization process is then employed utilizing the validated model of the prepared composite nano-catalyst to get the optimal operating conditions achieving maximum conversion of such process. The results show that the process is effective in removing more than 99% of the sulfur from the LGO resulting in a cleaner fuel.

Yes / Production of clean fuel has recently become one of the most important goals for petroleum refining industries. The objective of this work is to obtain such clean fuel using simple and easy process under safe conditions. For this purpose, batch oxidative desulfurization (ODS) process is considered here to remove sulfur compounds found in light gas oil using a new composite synthetic homemade nano-catalyst. First the support for the new catalyst, which is HY zeolite nanoparticles, is prepared using sol-gel method. The support is then employed to generate the synthetic composite nano-catalyst which is made of copper oxide and nickel oxide using the impregnation method with different proportions of the active components such as: 5% CuO +25 % NiO, 10 % CuO +20 % NiO, 15 % CuO +15 % NiO, 20 % CuO +10 % NiO and 25 % CuO +5% NiO. An excellent distribution of the active metals with high surface area and pore volume as a result high activity has obtained. A fully automated batch reactor is used for the oxidative desulphurization of sulfur compounds and the performance of the new nano-catalyst at different safe reaction conditions (reaction temperature from 353−413 K, reaction time from 30−90 min) is evaluated in terms of sulfur removal.