Confining peroxophosphomolybdate within size-matched Zr-MOFs for extractive oxidative desulfurization

Deep desulphurization of diesel is essential because the sulfides from fuel combustion can cause acid rain, respiratory diseases and corrosion of industrial equipment. Peroxophosphomolybdate (BTA) 3 {PO 4 [MoO(O 2 ) 2 ] 4 }·3H 2 O, marked as PMo 4 , was confined in size-matched Zr-MOFs (UiO-66 and UiO-67) to prepared composites for extractive oxidative desulfurization. The composites underwent comprehensive characterization, including ICP-MS, FT-IR, XRD, SEM, XPS, TG and N 2 adsorption–desorption analysis. Desulfurization test was conducted with PMo 4 as homogeneous catalyst, and the reaction conditions were optimized. Then, the catalytic activity of the prepared composites was compared, and the result showed that the catalyst PMo 4 @UiO-67 can remove 94.1 % of the sulfides in the diesel within 100 min. After 15 consecutive tests, the total removal rate of sulfides still reached 88.5 %, thanks to the narrow window of carrier UiO-67 limited the leaching of the active component PMo 4 .