Synthesis of Defect-Rich Titanium Terephthalate with the Assistance of Acetic Acid for Room-Temperature Oxidative Desulfurization of Fuel Oil

The development of highly active oxidative desulfurization (ODS) catalysts is of practical importance for producing clean fuel oil. Recently, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have been attempted as ODS catalysts. However, the studies found that most of the MOFs were less active in ODS reactions mainly due to the lack of defect sites in the structure. Therefore, the synthesis of MOFs with defect sites has been pursued. Herein, porous titanium terephthalate with rich defect sites can be prepared with the assistance of acetic acid by the solvothermal method. The obtained material exhibited not only extraordinary ODS activity for the removal of DBT (87.1 mmol h–1 g–1) in model oil at room temperature but also simultaneously the strong ability of separating the sulfone product from the oil phase with a total sulfur removal content of 117 mg S/g catalyst when the concentration of 500 ppmw S in model oil was used. Such good catalytic performance could be mainly attributed to the creation of rich defect sites, high surface area, and the exposure of abundant active sites in the structure of the porous titanium terephthalate.