OPTOMIZATION OF PROCESS PARAMETERS FOR H2S ADSORPTION USING ZNO/SBA-3 AND RSM

H2S is a major toxic compound that could be found in air, water, Fossil fuels andcauses some worth effects such as acidic rain and corrosion. Therefore, removal of H2S isimportant issue from environmental and industrial point of view. In the present work SBA-3(SantaBarbarA University no. 3) with three different weight percent’s of ZnO, i.e. 5%, 10%and 15% was synthesized via an in situ approach. All synthesized samples were characterizedusing atomic absorption spectrometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption andtransmission electron microscopy (TEM). The obtained results from XRD and nitrogenadsorption confirmed that all the samples almost retained their ordered structure afterincorporation of ZnO nanoparticles within the mesopores of SBA-3. TEM images show thatZnO nanoparticles arranged along the direction of mesopores of SBA-3. After that,adsorption of H2S from a model gas (5000 ppm of H2S in helium) was investigated viaresponse surface methodology (RSM). A three factor Box–Behnken design with five centerpoints and one response was performed for the evaluation of effect of three processparameters, i.e. ZnO wt%, space velocity and temperature on the adsorption of H2S.Response surface methodology (RSM) was applied for optimizing the adsorption of H2S anda quadratic model was developed. Among the factors, temperature had the largest and spacevelocity had the lowest effect on the breakthrough of H2S. The model had r2 0.9185 indicatesthat this model can be used to navigate the design space. At optimum condition whichobtained from the model, the obtained breakthrough time (tbp) was 588 min.

Keywords:

Air pollution , H2S , Mesoporous materials , Removal , Zinc oxide