PII.017 Novel application for Palygorskite clay mineral: A kinetic and thermodynamic assessment of diesel fuel desulfurization

Resumo

Palygorskite (Pal) is a low-cost clay mineral material, was investigated in this study as a novel material for adsorptive desulfurization of commercial diesel. This clay mineral was characterized by XRF, XPS and XRD. The specific surface chemistry activity of Pal were crucial to efficient adsorption, proposing that an interaction between adsorbate/adsorbent involves π-complexation mainly with Fe species. The kinetic and equilibrium adsoprtion results showed high correlation to the pseudo-second order kinetic model for the adsorbent (R²> 0.99), suggesting a chemisorption process as the determining step. Maximum adsorption capacity calculated from the Langmuir isotherm (R²> 0.97) was 6.25 mg.g^-1 for raw-Pal at 318 K. The adsorbent Pal displayed good potential in the adsorption of sulfur compounds in real diesel fuel. Palygorskite stands out for being an abundant clay mineral in nature, environmentally safe, and with high possibility of its applications in adsorption and catalysis processes.