Hydrodesulfurization is one of the most important processes in the petrochemical industry. It has to be necessarily carried out to make petroleum fuels useful for running automobiles and for other purposes. Hydrodesulfurization requires catalysts which are efficient in decomposing sulfur compounds such as thiophene to hydrocarbons. For example, thiophene will have to be decomposed into butane.

C. N. R. Rao, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India, and co-workers found that by using MoS₂ containing only two or three layers, transformation of thiopene into butane was much better than with bulk MoS₂. This is further improved when nanoparticles of cobalt and nickel are deposited on the few-layer MoS₂ (see graph).

This finding could be helpful in an industry setting.

• Hydrodesulfurization of Thiophene over Few-Layer MoS₂ Covered with Cobalt and Nickel Nanoparticles
  Bolla Govinda Rao, H. S. S. Ramakrishna Matte, Piyush Chaturbedy, C. N. R. Rao,
  ChemPlusChem 2013.
  DOI: 10.1002/cplu.201300012