The increasing amount of transportation vehicles poses a concern regarding environmental safety. High amounts of sulfur in transportation fuels not only produce acid rain, but also poison the fuel cell electrodes. One way to tackle this problem is by deep desulfurization of the fuels. To meet the stringent emission standards set by the EPA, a conventional desulfurization technique with hydrogen treatment is commonly used to reduce the sulfur concentration down to low ppm levels. However, this method is highly expensive due to the use of high amounts of hydrogen at elevated pressure conditions. Furthermore, it has been shown that hydrodesulfurization is not the best method for removing refractory sulfur compounds, such as alkyl-benzothiophene and its derivatives.
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