Kinetics and mechanism of liquid-phase oxidation of thiophene over TS-1 using H2O2 under mild conditions

Thiophene is a typical thiophenic sulfur compound in gasoline. Using n-octane containing thiophene as the model compound, the oxidation of thiophene, which is a key step for the oxidative deep desulfurization of gasoline, was carried out to study the reactivity of thiophene in oxidation reactions. It has been observed that thiophene oxidation can occur using water or t-butanol as solvent. Kinetics of the reaction shows a pseudo-first-order toward thiophene or catalyst and a zero order toward hydrogen peroxide. The mechanism for this unique reaction was proposed as the activation of conjugated electron in thiophene ring.