Abstract: In this paper, agglomerated bulk activated clay was used as precursor, which was stripped and dispersed under basic conditions, and then the short-range ordered mesoporous SiO2 was introduced into the activated clay interlayers by the guiding of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) to obtain the flake mesoporous activated clay. The as synthesized mesoporous activated clay and the reference activated clay were subjected to copper ion (Cu2+) modification by equal volume impregnation method. The static catalytic oxidation experiment with 1-propanethiol hexane solution showed that the conversion of 1-propanethiol on Cu2+modified clay was close to 100% when the copper loading was 25% (w) and the activation temperature was 150 °C. Dynamic catalytic oxidation experiment showed that the mesoporous activated clay had higher Cu2+ loading capacity and exhibited better catalytic oxidation performance for thiol under the same Cu2+ loading. In addition, the study on catalytic oxidation mechanism of 1-propanethiol found that the excessive 1-propanethiol was catalyzed by Cu2+ to form dipropyl disulfide.

Key words: activated clay, mesoporous, catalytic oxidation, 1-propanethiol