Effect of impregnation sequence of Pd/Ce/γ-Al2O3 sorbents on Hg0 removal from coal derived fuel gas

Abstract

This study attempted to investigate the effect of impregnation sequence of the Pd/Ce/γ-Al2O3 sorbents on Hg0 removal. To this end, five kinds of sorbents were prepared and tested in simulated coal derived fuel gas (N2–H2–CO–H2S–Hg), including Pd/γ-Al2O3, Ce/γ-Al2O3 and three kinds of Pd-based sorbents with Ce impregnation on γ-Al2O3 substrate. The tests were conducted at 250 and 300 °C respectively. According to the results, bimetallic Ce–Pd/γ-Al2O3 sorbent prepared by simultaneously impregnating Pd and Ce showed much higher and more stable removal efficiency of Hg0 than the other three kinds of sorbents. The Hg0 removal efficiency of Ce–Pd/γ-Al2O3 sorbent reached above 98% within 480 min at 250 °C and 91% within 200 min at 300 °C. Characterization results indicated that the sorbent Ce–Pd/γ-Al2O3 prepared by the co-impregnation method had bigger specific surface area (216.6 m2/g) than the other three kinds of Pd-based sorbents. The content Pd and Ce on the sorbent Ce–Pd/γ-Al2O3 surface is 0.21% and 0.61%, which proved higher than that of the other three kinds of Pd-based sorbents, and observation from STEM-XEDS maps showed it demonstrated the highest dispersion. It is found that Ce is likely to promote the dispersion of Pd on the support surface during the preparation of the sorbent under the co-impregnation method. Meanwhile, Ce enhanced the H2S resistance of the sorbent. Thereby, Ce–Pd/γ-Al2O3 sorbent is found to have the optimal performance of mercury removal. In this study, the Hg0 removal mechanism of the Pd/Ce/γ-Al2O3 sorbents in the simulated coal derived fuel gas was also elaborated.