Integrated process of electrochemical hydrogengation and electrooxidation of diesel oil

Due to the future specifications for sulfur and polyaromatic content in diesel,the traditional hydrotreatment process was confronted with the difficulty to fulfill this target for the steric hindrance of polyaromatic sulfur compounds such as dibenzothiophene(DBT) and its derivatives,lead to their slow reactivity with catalysts.An alternative method for desulfurization was the oxidation and extraction removal of sulfur compounds,but the polyaromatic content remained the original content.A new integrated process was studied in which the electrochemical hydrogenation of polycyclic aromatics and electrooxidation of sulfur compounds in diesel oil could be integrated in CH3CN+EtOH+H2O+Bu4NBr electrolysis system with spumous Pb as cathode and graphite as anode.The electrochemical hydrogenation was mild,the content of H for diesel increased 1.1%,the content of polycyclic aromatics decreased 3.3%,cetane increased 3.9.The sulfur compounds in diesel oil were oxidized,the sulphone compounds were not extracted into electrolysis system completely,further by adsorption with activated carbon,the sulfur content decrease from 884 μg·g-1 to 44 μg·g-1.