Activity and stability of amino-functionalized SBA-15 immobilized 12-tungstophosphoric acid in the oxidative desulfurization of a diesel fuel model with H₂O₂

In this study, the stability and the catalytic activity of an ordered mesoporous SBA-15 immobilized 12-tungstophosphoric acid (H ₃ PW ₁₂ O ₄₀ , HPW) in the oxidative desulfurization (ODS) of benzothiophene (BT) and dibenzothiophene (DBT) were improved by a post-synthesis-grafting method. In this method, SBA-15 was functionalized to provide a large number of amine groups for the immobilization of HPW through electrostatic binding with (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) using triflic acid as a protonated agent. The materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), N ₂ adsorption–desorption, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that the structure of functionalized SBA-15 support and the active phase of the HPW remained intact after immobilization. The synthesized PW ^– H ₃ N ⁺ -SBA-15 catalyst showed a high catalytic activity for ODS, achieving BT and DBT conversion of 99.9% and 100% with the reaction conditions of reaction temperature of 50 °C, H ₂ O ₂ dosage of 1 mL, catalyst dosage of 0.03 g, and reaction time 5 and 1 h, respectively. The catalyst also showed a high reusability after up to four cycles, for which the conversion of the fourth reaction was 90.0% for both BT and DBT.