Oxidative Desulfurization of Sour Gas Condensate and Optimization of Parameters with Response Surface Methodology

Reducing environmental pollution via elimination of sulfur compounds from gas condensate was the aim of this research. Whereby oxidative desulfurization from gas condensate with 3200 ppm initial sulfur was accomplished by hydrogen peroxide (30%wt) as oxidant and formic acid as catalyst. The sulfones after generation in the oxidation step were extracted through a method of liquid-liquid extraction by acetone as a polar solvent. The effects of variables: coefficient of oxidant to sulfur molar ratio (O/S), temperature (T), and coefficient of catalyst to oxidant molar ratio (C/O) were investigated. The experiments were designed with response surface methodology based on central composite design (CCD). The results of experiments demonstrated that none of these variables (O/S, T, and C/O) have any interaction, and among these variables, O/S plays a significant role with the most influence on desulfurization and C/O and T are of the second and third primary of importance, respectively. In addition, 86% desulfurization was obtained in the optimum conditions.