Novel Amine Modified Nanoporous SBA-15 Sorbent for the Removal of H2S from Gas Streams in the Presence of CH4 (RESEARCH NOTE)

A new sorbent has been developed by grafting Hexamethylenetetramine on a mesoporous molecular sieve (SBA-15) by wet impregnation method. This sorbent (Hexamine/SBA-15) has been characterized using N2 physisorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD) at low angles (2θ°) and FT-IR. To investigate the H2S removal capacity of this adsorbent from CH4-containing gas mixtures, the breakthrough tests have been performed on a fixed-bed flow system. The results show that after the amine loading, hexamine is dispersed inside the mesochannels of mesoporous SBA-15. Effects of the amine loading and sorption temperature on the sorption behavior of this developed sorbent have also been studied. Increase of amine loading enhances the H2S sorption on this sorbent, while increase in temperature, both the breakthrough capacity (qb) and the saturation capacity (qs) decrease. High sorption capacity is observed at low temperature which provides a promoting effect in removal of H2S from gas mixtures streams on the developed Hexamine/SBA-15 sorbent. This developed sorbent is regenerated easily at 100°C, and shows very good stability. Therefore it can be effectively used for removing H2S from industrial gas stream.