Fabrication of rice husk activated carbon and its application to desulfurization of kerosene

Abstract

Fabrication of rice husk activated carbon and its application to desulfurization of keroseneHirotaka ISHIZAWA , Seiji KUMAGAI , Masaya SUGIMOTO , Yasuhiro TOIDA Micro and mesoporous molded activated carbon was fabricated from rice husk and beet sugar. The material properties of the rice husk and beet sugar based activated carbon were analyzed. The fabricated granular rice husk activated carbon and commercial microporous granular coconut shell activated carbon were tested to remove aromatic sulfur compounds of benzothiophenes and dibenzothiophenes from commercial kerosene. Fixed-bed flow tests were conducted, providing the breakthrough curves for benzothiophenes and dibenzothiophenes. The adsorption isotherms for benzothiophenes and dibenzothiophenes were also obtained in a batch-mode, correlating with the results of the fixed-bed flow test. Both the activated carbons were useful to remove them. The rice husk activated carbon showed a lower-selectivity for dibenzothiophenes, but a higher-selectivity for benzothiophenes, than the coconut shell activated carbon.