Production of low sulfur diesel fuel via adsorption: an equilibrium and kinetic study on the adsorption of dibenzothiophene onto NaY zeolite

The adsorption of dibenzothiophene (DBT) in hexadecane onto NaY zeolite has been studied by performing equilibrium and kinetic adsorption experiments. The influence of several variables such as contact time, initial concentration of DBT and temperature on the adsorption has been investigated. The results show that the isothermal equilibrium can be represented by the Langmuir equation. The maximum adsorption capacity at different temperatures and the corresponding Langmuir constant (K _L ) have been deduced. The thermodynamic parameters (ΔG ⁰,ΔH ⁰,ΔS ⁰) for the adsorption of DBT have also been calculated from the temperature dependence of K _L using the van’t Hoff equation. The value of ΔH ⁰,ΔS ⁰ are found to be −30.3 kJ mol⁻¹ and −33.2 J mol⁻¹ K⁻¹ respectively. The adsorption is spontaneous and exothermic. The kinetics for the adsorption process can be described by either the Langmuir model or a pseudo-second-order model. It is found that the adsorption capacity and the initial rate of adsorption are dependent on contact time, temperature and the initial DBT concentration. The low apparent activation energy (12.4 kJ mol⁻¹) indicates that adsorption has a low potential barrier suggesting a mass transfer controlled process. In addition, the competitive adsorption between DBT, naphthalene and quinoline on NaY was also investigated.