Advances in selective adsorption for removing sulfur at ambient conditions for producing ultra-clean fuels without using hydrogen

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Chunshan Song, csong@psu.edu, Xiaoliang Ma, Jae Hyung Kim, and Anning Zhou. Clean Fuels and Catalysis Program, The Energy Institute, and Department of Energy & Geo-Environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, 209 Academic Projects Building, University Park, PA 16802
Towards developing a more environment-friendly and more energy-efficient process for producing ultra-clean fuels in the future, we are exploring a novel process concept at the Pennsylvania State University called selective adsorption for removing sulfur from various liquid and gaseous fuels (PSU-SARS) at ambient conditions. The idea is to explore selective adsorption based on direct sulfur-adsorbent interaction that is specific for sulfur compounds such that the adsorbents can attract sulfur compounds to the surface by selective chemisorption in the presence of large amounts of aromatic compounds that are common components in liquid fuels. Recent advances will be discussed on exploratary studies on various types of adsorbent materials (metal compounds, zeolites, carbon materials) and various liquid fuels (gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel) and gaseous fuels (natural gas, reformates and syngas). This is in distinct contrast to the prevailing commercial processes based on hydrodesulfurization using high-pressure high-temperature reactor using pressurized hydrogen gas. More background information is available in a recent review [C.S. Song, An Overview of New Approaches to Deep Desulfurization for Ultra-Clean Gasoline, Diesel Fuel and Jet Fuel. Catalysis Today, 2003, 86, 211-263].