Study of Hydrogen Sulfide Adsorption on Silica Gel with Triethanolamine Layer

Abstract

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is an impurity in gaseous fuels such as biogas, therefore this gas removal method is an interesting topic. The physisorption method is considered to be a simple work to be applied on a small scale. This research studies the impact of the addition of liquid triethanolamine on the porous silica on the adsorption of H2S. The silica substrate is synthesized using two-pore templates namely a mixture of polyethylene glycol (PEG)/ sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and the other one is pure chitosan. The silica surface was coated with triethanolamine (TEA) using the impregnation method. An H2S gas adsorption study was conducted on the synthesized silica with and without TEA. The adsorption test was carried out by flowing H2S from the reaction between FeS and HCl through the sample. The results of this study show that the TEA layer on the silica surface increases the adsorption towards H2S gas, but it is relatively small compared to similar studies. The best result of combining TEA and silica gel is shown by TEA- sil-PS which was 3.8 x 10-5 mol H2S per gram of adsorbent.

Keywords

• physisorption
• hydrogen sulfide
• silica gel
• triethanolamine