Sorbents for Natural Gas Desulfurization

摘要

Sulfur-containing odorants are normally added to propane and natural gas supplies to facilitate leak detection.Odorization of hydrogen supplied to polymer electrolyte fuel cells may also be required for similar safety reasons.The sulfur in these fuels can poison the catalysts used in fuel cell fuel processing systems and inactivate the surfaces of the fuel cell anodes resulting in degraded power generation performance.The sulfur content of natural gas or any hydrocarbon fuel needs to be reduced to very low levels to ensure long-term stable electrochemical performance for both high and low temperature fuel cells.This paper presents the development and test results of a new physical adsorbent for natural gas and hydrogen desulfurization.The sorbent effectively removes all sulfur-bearing compounds at ambient temperature with very high capacity.The new sorbent can also be fully regenerated by temperature swing.In a series of tests,the sulfur adsorption capacity of the new material is compared to other commercially available and specially prepared sorbents.The results of the comparison tests are also summarized in this paper.