Abstract
Hydrogen recovery from off gas of hydrocracking and hydrotreating unit is one of the crucial processes in an oil and gas refinery unit as this process helps in lowering the expenses for operations. This study aims to obtain activated carbon that is made from Betung bamboo which can be used as the adsorbent in this process. The activated agents used are H3PO4 and K2CO3, respectively. Each activation lasts for 30 minutes. The results of the characterization test shows that the Iodine number of the activated carbon produced reaches 916.4 mg/g with BET surface area of 465.2 m2/g. SEM-EDX analysis shows that the carbon content is 74.83%. The activated carbon obtained is used to separate Hydrogen and Methane from its mixture at 10, 20 and 30oC with pressure variations of 1 - 6 bar. The results indicate that the maximum number of moles adsorbed from CH4(21.5%)/H2 gas mixture is 0.247 mmol/g, that has been carried out at 6 bar with temperature of 10oC. Methane has 2.2 times higher adsorption capacity than hydrogen, therefore, the Betung bamboo based activated carbon produced from this research can be applied as the adsorbent in the separation process of CH4/H2 mixture and it fits the Langmuir model.
Highlights
The recent downturn situation of the oil and gas industry has created a threat for companies in terms of making operational expenses
One of the prominent ways to help solve this problem is by applying the Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) Technology to recover hydrogen from the off gas of hydrocracking and hydrotreating processes
As the world is shifting to maximize the utilization of renewable energy resources, researchers have found several agricultural products that are feasible to be the raw materials of activated carbon
Summary
The recent downturn situation of the oil and gas industry has created a threat for companies in terms of making operational expenses. The PSA technology is said to be more economical than other technologies as it costs $1.29/kg hydrogen gas recovered [1]. Betung bamboo is an organic material which contains high amount of carbon. Previous researches have claimed that this material can be used as the raw material for activated carbon [2]. It contains high amount of cellulose, lignin, pentosan, ash and silica. Compared to other types of bamboo, Betung bamboo (Dendrocalamus asper) is said to contain more Lignin and Cellulose as much as 52.9% and 24.8%, respectively [3]. By doing two times chemical activation with two different activating agents, the result of the activated carbon obtained might have better characterization
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