Optimal liquid fuel extractive desulfurization in micro and mini-channels

Its superior efficiency, ease of scale-up by numbering-up as well as its continuous flow layout made the utilization of micro-technology promising in the field of chemical separation. This study examined the performance of polyethylene glycol 200 (PEG 200) and a mixture synthesized by mixing 1:2 M ratio of tetrabutyl ammonium bromide salt and polyethylene glycol 200 (PEG200-TBAB) for extraction of thiophene (TS) and dibenzothiophene (DBT) from liquid fuel. The central composite design (CCD) was employed to visualize the interaction effect of different operation factors including channel diameter, channel length, mixing velocity and volume fraction on the extraction of sulfur compounds. It was found that extraction efficiency fluctuates with respect to mixture velocity but the highest removal was observed at mixture velocity of 0.03 m/s and 1:1 fuel to solvent volume ratio. Moreover, the percentage of extraction increased with increasing channel length and decreasing channel diameter. The highest percentage of extraction for both the solvents (PEG200 and PEG200-TBAB) was achieved with a channel diameter of 0.5 mm and a length of 600 mm in only 40 s.