Priyanka Dhage
Ph.D Student, 2006-2011
The removal of sulfur from reformate streams is critical for maintaining the activity of fuel processing catalysts. My dissertation is focused on the development of novel doped-supported sorbents with typical formulation of X0.05ZnO0.95/SiO2 [X=Dopant= Cu, Mn, Fe] for efficient, cost-effective and scalable removal of H2S and COS over wide temperature range without significant activity loss upon multiple regeneration cycles. The addition of 5mol% of dopant in ZnO/SiO2 leads to over 90% of theoretical sulfur adsorption capacity at room temperature. The role of dopant ions species in ZnO/SiO2 is studied via in-situ ESR, XPS and DRS. Novel carbon based sorbents can effectively carry out hydrolysis of COS at room temperature. A new embedded sensor approach provides a unique opportunity to assess desulfurization bed capacity in situ and when to initiate regeneration. This work is important not only for natural gas clean up, but also syn-gas clean up for GTL, BTL and CTL.
