Jung GS  Lee SH  Cheon JK  Choe JW  Woo HC

Vol. 15,  No. 1, pp. 60-66, Mar.  2009

흡착제 부취제 흡착 탈황 제올라이트 Adsorbent Odorant Adsorptive desulfurization Zeolite

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Adsorptive removal of tetrahydrothiophene (THT) and tert-butylmercaptan (TBM) that were widely used sulfur odorants in pipeline natural gas was studied using various ion-exchanged NaY zeolites at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure. In order to improve the adsorption ability, ion exchange was performed on NaY zeolites with alkali metal cations of Li+, Na+, K+ and transition metal cations of Cu^(2+), Ni^(2+), Co^(2+), Ag(+). Among the adsorbents tested, Cu-NaY and Ag-NaY showed good adsorption capacities for THT and TBM. These good behaviors of removal of sulfur compound for Cu-NaY and Ag-NaY zeolites probably was influenced by their acidity. The adsorption capacity for THT and TBM on the best adsorbent Cu-NaY-0.5, which was ion exchanged with 0.5 M copper nitrate solution, was 1.85 and 0.78 mmol-S/g at breakthrough, respectively. It was the best sulfur capacity so far in removing organic sulfur compounds from fuel gas by adsorption on zeolites. While the desorption activation energy of TBM on the Cu-NaY-0.5 was higher than NaY zeolite, the difference of THT desorption activation energy between two zeolites was comparatively small.