A SUPPORTED TITANIUM AND COPPER BASED CATALYST FOR DESULPHURIZATION REACTION

Abstract

Natural gas is used as one alternative way to generate the largest scale of energy especially for electricity in the world. Hence, many oil and gas companies try to explore a new crude natural gas well for maximizing production of LNG. Malaysian crude natural gas contains various gases components including methane (40-50 %), ethane (5-10 %) and propane (1-5 %). However, this crude natural gas also contains toxic and acidic gases components such as H2S (1–5 %) and CO2 (20-30 %). Which has the ability to corrode carbon steel used in the natural gas pipeline system and material in the processing plant. Fe3+/Zn2+/Cu2+/Al2O3 and Fe3+/Zn2+/Cu2+/Ti4+/Al2O3 with the ratio 0.05:0.2:1 and 0.1:0.1:0.8:1 respectively, were found to be the best catalysts for reaction of H2S desulphurization. These catalysts were prepared via modified sol-gel and impregnation methods and calcined at 400oC for 5 hours. The results of catalytic activity testing for the Fe3+/Zn2+/Cu2+/Al2O3 and Fe3+/Zn2+/Cu2+/Ti4+/Al2O3 showed H2S desulphurization percentage of 100 % at 100oC of reaction temperature. The both supported catalysts of Fe3+/Zn2+/Cu2+/Al2O3 and Fe3+/Zn2+/Cu2+/Ti4+/Al2O3 also had the lowest of H2S adsorption with 3.7 % and 1.9 % at the range of room temperature to 40oC and it also could oxidize the highly concentration of H2S with 90.6 % and 94.3 % at the low temperature of 40oC, respectively. Importantly, the both catalysts could be regenerated via heating at 200oC for 3 hours under compressed air flow at the rate of 100mLmin-1. The XRD analysis only showed the present three peaks due to cubic phase of γ-Al2O3. The Ti, Cu, Zn and Fe elements present in the both catalysts matrix system were presumably to be homogeneously dispersed on the surface of alumina support. The SEM micrograph showed that the supported catalysts had homogeneous size particles.