Visible light photocatalytic oxidative desulfurization using Ti-MCM-41-loaded iron phthalocyanine combined with ionic liquid extraction

Iron phthalocyanine (PcFe) was loaded on Ti-MCM-41 as visible light photocatalyst (R-PcFe/Ti-MCM-41). Dibenzothiophene (DBT) was photooxidized using R-PcFe/Ti-MCM-41 as a photocatalyst, air as an oxidant, and ionic liquid as the extraction agent during visible light irradiation at room temperature and ambient conditions. The results indicated that photocatalytic efficiency of the amino iron phthalocyanine (NH2-PcFe)/Ti-MCM-41 was superior to the other substituent groups. The DBT content in the model oil decreased from 1000 to 44 μg/mL with 95.6% removal rate under the optimal reaction conditions (model oil 10 mL, photocatalyst NH2-PcFe/Ti-MCM-41 0.02 g, loading amount of NH2-PcFe 0.3 g/g, air flow rate 100 mL/min, reaction time 2 h, room temperature). The kinetics of photocatalytic oxidation of DBT follows first-order kinetics with a rate constant of 1.319 h−1 and halftime of 0.525 h. The photocatalyst NH2-PcFe/Ti-MCM-41 was reused for five times, and the catalytic activity decreased slightly. The photocatalytic oxidation system demonstrated significant desulfurization effects on different sulfur compounds and real gasoline, and the sulfur content of the actual gasoline could be reduced from 1000 to 78 ppm.