Deep desulfurization of gasoline by SARS process using adsorbent for fuel cells

New approaches in deep desulfurization of gasoline by SARS-II (selective adsorption for removing sulfur) process using adsorbent A-2 for fuel cell applications. Desulfurization of the model gasoline by adsorption was carried out at ambient temperature and ambient pressure using adsorbent A-2. No detectable sulfur was found in the treated gasoline when the effluent volume was < 160 mL, indicating that all sulfur in the model gasoline was removed by the selective adsorption. During this region, the sulfur concentration in the outlet model gasoline was < 1 ppm wt. The breakthrough point was around 160 mL and the corresponding breakthrough adsorption capacity of the adsorbent A-2 was 0.0191 g S/mL of the adsorbent. After this point, the sulfur concentration of the effluent increased with increasing volume of the effluent. The preliminary desulfurization experiments showed a very good performance of the adsorbent A-2 for selectively removing sulfur from the model gasoline. By comparison with the performance of the adsorbent A-2 for selectively removing sulfur from the JP-8, the saturated adsorption capacity for the model gasoline was higher than that of the JP-8 by about 46%. Comparison of the adsorption profiles for thiophene and benzothiophene showed that after the breakthrough point the thiophene concentration in the effluent was slightly higher than that of benzothiophenes. This indicated that benzothiophene had a stronger interaction with the adsorbent than thiophene.