The investigation of adsorption desulphurization performance using bimetallic Cu-Ce and Ni-Ce mesoporous Y zeolites: Modification of Y zeolite by H4EDTA-NaOH sequential treatment

The microporous structure of Y zeolite strongly affects the function of adsorption desulphurization, especially when resistant compounds are present in fuel. The goal of this paper was to enhance a novel, hierarchically structured bimetal Y zeolite and to investigate the adsorption desulphurization performance from different model fuels that included toluene as a competitor. Mesoporosity was introduced in Y zeolite by the dealuminationdesilication process with different concentrations of EDTA and NaOH to improve the pore structure. The synthesized samples were characterized by means of XRD, BET, FE-SEM, FT-IR, EDX and UV techniques. In the following, bimetallic Cu-Ce and Ni-Ce were impregnated on parent Y zeolite and mesoporous samples to increase the adsorption capacity. The prepared meso-CuCe and meso-NiCe were characterized and measured in the term of adsorption desulphurization with different model fuels contained thiophene and dibenzothiophene. The results showed that meso-NiCe increased the adsorption capacity of thiophene and dibenzothiophene up to 24.4 and 27.5 mg/g, respectively, which were almost 4.1 times more than the parent Y zeolite and after two cycles of regeneration by thermal method, the adsorption capacity hardly decreased. In addition, effect of toluene, initial concentration, time, and temperature were investigated on the adsorption capacity of the adsorbents.