Reactivity of Sorbents with Hot Hydrogen Sulfide in the Presence of Moisture and Hydrogen

Abstract

Hot-gas desulfurization for the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) process has been investigated by many researchers to remove effectively hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) with various metal oxide sorbents at elevated temperatures. Various metal oxide sorbents are formulated with metal oxides such as Fe, Co, Zn, and Ti. In this article, reactivity of AHI-1 sorbent, obtained from the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), was investigated. Initial reactivity of AHI-1 sorbent with hydrogen sulfide was studied in the presence of various amounts of moisture and hydrogen at various reaction temperatures. AHI-1 sorbent consists of 20-w% Fe₂O₃, 10-w% ZnO, and 70-w% spent fluid cracking catalyst (FCC). The objectives of this research were to study initial reaction kinetics for the AHI-1 sorbent–hydrogen sulfide heterogeneous reaction system, to investigate effects of concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, and moisture on dynamic absorption of H₂S into the sorbent, to understand effects of space time of reaction gas mixtures on initial reaction kinetics of the sorbent–hydrogen sulfide system, and to evaluate effects of temperature and sorbent amounts on dynamic absorption of H₂S into the sorbent. Experimental data on initial reaction kinetics of hydrogen sulfide with the metal oxide sorbent were obtained with a 0.83-cm³ differential reactor. The sorbent in the form of 130-μm particles was reacted with 1000 to 4000 ppm hydrogen sulfide at 450 to 600°C. The range of space time of reaction gas mixtures is 0.03 to 0.09 s. The range of reaction duration is 4 to 14,400 s.

Keywords:

• Metal oxide sorbents
• Surface reaction
• Intraparticle diffusion
• Hydrogen sulfide
• Coal gases
• Gas clean-up
• IGCC
• Transport reactor
• Gas-solid reaction

Acknowledgment

Financial support for this work was provided by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, Grant DE-FG26-98FT40145.