C 9 fraction is the by-products of catalytic reforming and ethylene cracker; it is considered as a kind of petroleum resin raw material. Recently, it was studied for the use as a gasoline additive to enhance the economic benefits. However, C 9 fractions are getting higher in sulfur contents. As conventional hydrotreating technology leads to significant octane number loss and processing costs, the alkylation desulfurization process, which could reduce the sulfuric compounds to hydrogen sulfide by catalytic alkylation with olefins and distillation followed by, is a rather attractive way of reducing the sulfur of C 9 fraction. In this paper, different kinds of thiophenic compounds, including 2-ethylthiophen, 2,5-dimethylthiophene, and 2-n-propylthiophene, were selected as the model compounds. Thiophenic compounds
XU AND LIwere studied first by the alkylation reaction over macroporous sulfonic resin Amberlyst 36, and the octane number of C 9 fraction was measured. It was found that isoamylene and Amberlyst 36 resin had a significant effect on the alkylation desulfurization of thiophenic compounds with the conversion, reaching to above 99%. And the octane number of C 9 fraction was increased by alkylation desulfurization over Amberlyst 36 resin. Moreover, the alkylation of thiophenic sulfurs could be described as a pseudo-first-order reaction as well as the reaction rate constant, and the activation energy of alkylation reactions was calculated. C