New desulfurizing bacteria able to convert dibenzothiophene into 2-hydroxybiphenyl and sulfate were isolated from contaminated soils collected in Mexican refineries. Random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis showed they were different from previously reported Rhodococcus erythropolis desulfurizing strains. According to 16S rRNA gene sequencing and fatty acid analyses, these new isolates belonge...

Accurate calculations of adsorption energies of cyclic molecules are of key importance in investigations of, e.g., hydrodesulfurization (HDS) catalysis. The present density functional theory (DFT) study of a set of important reactants, products, and inhibitors in HDS catalysis demonstrates that van der Waals interactions are essential for binding energies on MoS(2) surfaces and that DFT with a ...

The hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) method IMOMM is applied to the calculation of the reaction of thiophene with Cp*RhPMe3 , which is a good experimental model for homogeneous catalytic hydrodesulfurization (HDS). The validity of the results is checked by comparison with previously reported full QM calculations on the same system. The geometries obtained with IMOMM are in g...

Biodesulfurization offers an attractive alternative to conventional hydrodesulfurization due to the mild operating conditions and reaction specificity afforded by the biocatalyst. The enzymatic pathway existing in Rhodococnrs has been demonstrated to oxidatively desulfurize the organic sulfur occurring in dibenzothiophene while leaving the hydrocarbon intact. In order for biodesulfurization to ...