Desulphurization Of Dbt In Cyclohexane Model Oil Using Ionic Liquid

Crude oil is conventionally processed by distillation followed by various cracking, solvent refining and hydro conversion processes to produce a desired slate of petroleum end products. However, increasingly tighter regulations on contaminant in fuels, particularly sulphur and aromatics content around 30ppm, have forced many refiners to hydro refine most and often all, of the fuel products.
In response to the more stringent requirements for cleaner fuels, refiners have added Hydrodesulphurization (HDS) process unit to produce low sulphur, low aromatics diesel. Unfortunately, the aromatic sulphur compounds present the most difficult challenges to the HDS processes in both cost and technology wise. The discovery of ionic liquid extraction power has attracted many attentions to do further researches as environmentally solvent to encounter HDS problem.
The purpose of this research is to extend the study on desulphurization trending produced by 1-Butyl-3-Methyl-Imidazolium Tiocyanate-[BMIM][SCN] ionic liquid on dibenzothiophene (DBT) in cyclohexane model oil. This experiment is carried out by manipulating various parameters tested on mixture of model oil and ionic liquid. From the result omitted, the most optimum parameters in desulphurization process using [BMIM][SCN] can be determined. This experiment is segregated into 3 different parameters which are mixing time, effect of temperature and the mixing ratio.
The samples are then analysed using Gas Chromatography (GC) and High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) to measure their desulphurization efficiency. All the experiment is repeated using imidazolium and pyridinium based ionic liquid which paired up with different anions to observe their ionic liquid extraction capability. Hypothetically, further studies will be done on the most promising ionic liquid with high extraction ratio to improve chemical and mechanical properties of crude oil products for large scale production and to replace the current desulphurization technology.