Ethanol is an important bio fuel produced from corn (or cane sugar) by fermentation and is also being used as a fuel for fuel cell applications. Because of the complexity of modem applications of ethanol, it is desirable to provide ethanol streams in as high a purity as possible. One common impurity in ethanol streams is sulfur. However, effective utilization of ethanol in fuel cell applications requires effective removal of sulfur impurities to prevent them from degrading the performance of the fuel cell stacks and poisoning of the catalysts used in the fuel processor that generates hydrogen from the ethanol. Hence, sulfur removal is important in all types of fuel cells, including the more sulfur tolerant solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and the low temperature polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells and the sulfur content of the ethanol stream needs to be reduced to less than 0.1 ppmv.
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