Comparison of experimental and modelled data for sulfur molecular distribution in diesel feeds from various origins

PETR 29

Cyril Dartiguelongue, Cyril.DARTIGUELONGUE@ifp.fr1, Damien Hudebine, damien.hudebine@ifp.fr2, Fabrice Bertoncini, fabrice.bertoncini@ifp.fr3, Clementina Lopez Garcia3, and Thierry Chapus, thierry.chapus@ifp.fr2. (1) Physics and Analysis Division, Institut Français du Pétrole, PO Box 3, 69390 Vernaison, France, (2) Process Development and Engineering Division, Institut Français du Pétrole, PO Box 3, Vernaison, 69390, France, (3) Physics and Analysis Division, Institut Francais du Petrole, PO Box 3, Vernaison, 69390, France
The clean fuel legislation in the EU and USA has brought stricter limitations requiring a total sulfur content in gasolines and diesel oils around 10 ppm after 2008. Therefore, the understanding of reactions involved in sulfur removal from diesel feeds requires an improved molecular identification and quantification of sulfur compounds, especially dibenzothiophenes. The recent development of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography hyphenated with sulfur-chemiluminescence detection (GCxGC-SCD) offers an interesting perspective in the characterization of sulfur compounds from gas-oils. In this study, GCxGC-SCD was applied to the identification and quantification of sulfur compounds from an extended database of diesel feeds from various origins. This technique proved to be extremely sensitive and resolutive, allowing an unambiguous repartition of sulfur compounds into well-defined families. Quantitative comparison with mass spectrometry showed an excellent agreement. Distributions of benzothiophenic and dibenzothiophenic isomers by carbon numbers were compared to the distributions used in the IFP statistical model for diesel reconstruction and showed good agreement. The statistical approach combined with the strong potentiality offered by GCxGC-SCD are very powerful tools to be used in the field of sulfur molecular characterization of gas-oils.