Removal of Sulfur Compounds from Industrial Emission Using Activated Carbon Derived from Petroleum Coke

Abstract

Activated carbon (AC) materials are porous structures generated by activation of either pyrolyzed plant or coke materials through physical or chemical means. While being widely used in industry for water, air, and product purification, ACs also may be suitable for the removal of pollutants from flue gas or sulfur compounds from natural gas fuels before combustion, provided the processes/materials are economic. ACs derived from petroleum coke (petcoke) that is often stranded and considered a low-quality byproduct are relatively inexpensive. To date, the pure component adsorption and selectivities for AC from petcoke have not been reported and compared to other reported ACs for practical application with flue gas, sour gas, or acid gas purification. Here we show that an AC from petcoke displays both high-selectivity and capacity toward SO2 and H2S. Single component volumetric adsorption experiments show adsorption as high as 554 mg g–1 for SO2 at p = 0.56 bar and 256 mg g–1 for H2S at p = 1 bar (T = 25 °C). This SO2 uptake is 66% higher than the previous highest SO2 uptake on an AC and 39 times as selective toward SO2 versus N2. These results suggest that AC from petcoke is an excellent material for recovering sulfur compounds from industrial flue gas or raw fuel, with the benefit of making use of a petroleum solid waste.

Nanoporous semi-cycloaliphatic polyaminal networks for capture of SO2, NH3, and I2

“…This value competes with the prior reported nanoporous materials, as observed in Table S4,† such as Gus (13–16, 296.2 K/101 kPa), 62 HNIP-DCX-1 (23), 63 ECUT-100 (27.5–26.9, 1 : 99 (v/v)), 64 MFM-170 (30), 65 MFM-601 (32), 66 ELM-12 (30), 51 and AC from Petcoke (30). 67…”

Sour Gas Adsorption on Silica Gels

“…The CH 4 , CO 2 , and H 2 S adsorption isotherms were measured using an in-house-built manometric adsorption instrument, which has been reported elsewhere (Figure ). ,,− The adsorption isotherms were collected at T = 0.000 ± 0.005, 25.000 ± 0.005, and 50.000 ± 0.005 °C. The silica gels were activated at T = 150 °C under an ultra-high vacuum ( p = 1 × 10 –10 bar) for at least 12 h between isotherms.…”

Preparation of Carbon-Based Solid Acid Catalyst from High-Sulfur Petroleum Coke with Nitric Acid and Ball Milling, and a Computational Evaluation of Inherent Sulfur Conversion Pathways

“…Stockpiling petcoke in the field is problematic because of the release of aromatic, volatile organic and other pollutant compounds to the atmosphere and/or groundwater [2,3]. In recent years, researchers have explored various applications for petcoke, including the co-gasification of petcoke with biomass or municipal solid waste [4][5][6], as an adsorbent after alkaline activation to increase its porosity [7][8][9][10][11], as a solid acid catalyst after sulfonation [12][13][14][15][16], and manufacturing carbon quantum dots [17]. We previously showed that the conversion of the inherent sulfur in petcoke to sulfonic acid groups enables catalytic activity for the esterification reaction of octanoic acid and methanol [16] but have not fully explored how this conversion may occur.…”