71
Removal
of Sulfur from Diesel Fuels--CrystaTech,
Inc.,
Dr.
David W. DeBerry, Principal Investigator, david.deberry@crystatech.com
Dr.
David M. Seeger, Business Official, david.seeger@crystatech.com
DOE
Grant No. DE-FG02-03ER83635
Amount:
$99,976
The
exhaust from diesel vehicles can cause serious health effects.
The sulfur in diesel fuels must be reduced to very low levels to control
the threat from these emissions. This
will require major refinery changes that could lead to high fuel prices and
shortages. This project will develop
a new process to remove sulfur from diesel fuels much more economically and
efficiently than current hydrodesulfurization or other existing processes.
It will have the additional advantage of recovering the sulfur as a
valuable fertilizer product in the same step as the desulfurization of the fuel.
Furthermore, it will operate at near ambient conditions instead of at the
high temperatures and high pressures required by current treatment processes,
and it will not require added hydrogen or additional processing of the extracted
sulfur. Phase I will test and
determine the feasibility of key steps in the new process.
The results will be used for process modeling and economic evaluation.
Commercial Applications and Other
Benefits
as described by awardee: The process
should be economical and capable of producing ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuels,
along with a valuable sulfur fertilizer byproduct, and should be useful to both
large and small refineries in the