Desulfurization
Removal of sulfur from a substance
Desulfurization or desulphurisation is a chemical process for the removal of sulfur from a material. The term usually refers to the removal of sulfur from a molecule or a material by hydrogenolysis:
- R2S + 2 H2 → 2RH + H2S
Hydrogen is the ultimate sulfur acceptor. As applied to oil refinery streams, the conversion is known as hydrodesulfurization. These processes are of industrial and environmental importance as they provide the bulk of sulfur used in industry (Claus process and Contact process), sulfur-free compounds that could otherwise not be used in a great number of catalytic processes, and also reduce the release of harmful sulfur compounds into the environment.
A laboratory scale hydrogenolysis is the desulfurization of thioketals by Raney nickel. In such cases, the hydrogen is contained within the reagent.
01Desulfurization without hydrogenolysis
Desulfurization without hydrogenolysis is uncommon. Some trithiocarbonates can be coupled by desulfurization with phosphites or phosphines as S-atom acceptors. This approach has been described by the following equation:
- 2 R2C=S + 2 PR'3 → R2C=CR2 + 2 R'3P=S
02Other
Other processes used for desulfurization include hydrodesulfurization, the SNOX process and the wet sulfuric acid process (WSA process).
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Desulfurization”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Desulfurization of thioacetal using Raney Ni (cropped).svg by User:Rune.welsh, Public domain
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