Desulfurization

Desulfurization or desulphurisation is a chemical process for the removal of sulfur from a material.

As applied to oil refinery streams, the conversion is known as hydrodesulfurization.

These processes are of industrial and environmental importance as they provide the bulk of sulfur used in industry (Claus process and Contact process), sulfur-free compounds that could otherwise not be used in a great number of catalytic processes, and also reduce the release of harmful sulfur compounds into the environment.

A laboratory scale hydrogenolysis is the desulfurization of thioketals by Raney nickel.

Some trithiocarbonates can be coupled by desulfurization with phosphites or phosphines as S-atom acceptors.

Chemical reaction: Thioacetal breaks into ethane, nickel sulfide and a hydrocarbon under the action of hydrogen and Raney nickel.
Example of desulfurization of thioacetals using Raney nickel