Immobilization of LaW onto Ionic-Liquid-Modified Mesoporous Silica: Deep Desulfurization with Zero-Order Reaction Kinetics.

The polyoxometalate (POM) cluster Na H LaW O ⋅32 H O (denoted LaW ) is immobilized onto dihydroimidazolium-based ionic-liquid (IL)-modified mesoporous silica, resulting in the formation of a new catalyst: LaW /IL-SiO . Compared with other reported extractive catalytic oxidative desulfurization (ECODS) systems, LaW /IL-SiO has the following advantages: 1) the heterogeneous catalyst LaW /IL-SiO achieves deep desulfurization of dibenzothiophene (DBT), benzothiophene (BT), and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DMDBT) in 25, 30, and 25 min, respectively, under mild conditions; 2) deep desulfurization of DBT follows zero-order reaction kinetics; 3) there is no need to add ionic liquid each time the catalyst is reused; 4) the catalyst can be separated easily by filtration and reused at least ten times without a decrease in catalytic efficiency. As such, LaW /IL-SiO shows great potential for practical applications.