Biomimetic Oxidation of Sulfides Based on FeIII Porphyrin under the Mild Conditions

FeIII porphyrin complexes as bioinspired catalysts exhibit remarkable catalytic activity for sulfides oxidation near the natural conditions, i.e. at room temperature, in the protonic solvent and with psychological oxidant H2O2 aqueous in the absence of other chemical assistance. Various sulfur substrates existing in petroleum were examined including refractory dibenzothiophene. Reaction conditions affecting the conversion of sulfides and the stability of catalyst were investigated. The results showed that polar and protonic solvent can facilitate this oxidation and the catalyst´s life-span was closely related with temperature variations. FeIII porphyrin, substituted on the phenyl groups with a chlorine atom, displayed higher efficiency than no substituted. The conversions calculated from the GC data are 100, 99.81, 99.78 and 77.05 wt % for di-n-butyl sulfide, thioanisole, diphenyl sulfide and dibenzothiophene respectively after a typical procedure.