Preparation of high-performance activated carbon from shenfu coal for adsorptive desulfurization of liquid hydrocarbon fuels

A novel method for preparing an ultra-high-surface-area activated carbon from Shenfu coal by chemical activation with NaOH and KOH as activating agents was explored in this study. The preparation method was optimized based on examination of diverse experimental variables such as impregnation time, activating-agent/coal ratio, KOH/NaOH ratio, activating temperature. The adsorptive performance of the prepared activated carbons was evaluated for removal of sulfur compounds from a liquid hydrocarbon fuel. The results indicate that effects of the activating-agent/coal ratio, KOH/NaOH ratio, activating temperature and time are significant for improvement of the adsorptive desulfurization performance of the activated carbons. The chemical activation with two activating agents (NaOH-KOH mixture) might be a more efficient method to develop an activated carbon with high desulfurization capacity in comparison with the chemical activation with KOH or NaOH alone. The specific surface of the activated carbon prepared by using the two activating agents can be up to 3000 m/g².