Immobilization of LaW10 onto Ionic-Liquid-Modified Mesoporous Silica: Deep Desulfurization with Zero-Order Reaction Kinetics

The polyoxometalate (POM) cluster Na(7)H(2)LaW(10)O(36)32H(2)O (denoted LaW10) is immobilized onto dihydroimidazolium-based ionic-liquid (IL)-modified mesoporous silica, resulting in the formation of a new catalyst: LaW10/IL-SiO2. Compared with other reported extractive catalytic oxidative desulfurization (ECODS) systems, LaW10/IL-SiO2 has the following advantages: 1)the heterogeneous catalyst LaW10/IL-SiO2 achieves deep desulfurization of dibenzothiophene (DBT), benzothiophene (BT), and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DMDBT) in 25, 30, and 25min, respectively, under mild conditions; 2)deep desulfurization of DBT follows zero-order reaction kinetics; 3)there is no need to add ionic liquid each time the catalyst is reused; 4)the catalyst can be separated easily by filtration and reused at least ten times without a decrease in catalytic efficiency. As such, LaW10/IL-SiO2 shows great potential for practical applications.