Review of biomass derived-activated carbon for production of clean fuels by adsorptive desulfurization: Insights into processes, modifications, properties, and performances

Sulfur remains the universally acknowledged most populous element in crude oil after carbon and hydrogen. The deleterious impact of sulfur emission from transportation fuels on both the environment and the psychological well-being of humans is becoming worrisome due to the geo-metric increase in energy demands. Sulfur in liquid fuel oils combusts in the automobile engine to give oxides of sulfur (SOx) resulting in acidic rain, poisons catalytic converters used to reduce oxides of carbon (COx) and cut short the engine's life due to corrosion. Additionally, heavier thiophenes are carcinogenic and mutagenic. Owing to these detrimental effects of sulfur contents present in the fuel, the concerned regulatory agencies set the minimum allowable sulfur concentration in trans-portation fuels to 10 ppmw and 15 ppmw for gasoline and diesel respectively. ADS process has been gaining an attractive interest towards achieving ultra-low sulfur removal from fuels due to its sim-plicity, fastness, environmental friendliness, reliability, and the use of cost-effective materials. This outstanding performance is due to its excellent adsorption affinity for recalcitrant sulfur compounds under moderate conditions. The ADS adsorption capacity is a function of the material used and AC produced from lignocellulosic biomass has proved to be a unique candidate for ultra-deep desulfu-rization applications. This review aims to expound researchers' views at a greater length on the recent development of ADS as a complementary process to traditional HDS or a freestanding tech-nique using AC. This meticulous work would also serve as a guide to beginners who have picked an interest in material design and its applicability for pollutant control.& COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).