Effective adsorption of hydrogen sulfide by intercalation of TiO2 and N-doped TiO2 in graphene oxide

Abstract

In this research, hydrogen sulfide was adsorbed onto the TiO2/graphene oxide (TiO2/GO) nanohybrids. In this regard, the band gap energy of the TiO2 nanoparticles was altered through nitrogen doping which influence the chemical properties of the metal oxides. The nanoadsorbents were characterized before and after adsorption of H2S. The effect of the temperature (200−220 °C) on the H2S adsorption capacity was examined. The results showed that the increase in the temperature had a positive effect on the adsorption of H2S for all of TiO2/GO hybrid nanoadsorbents. The optimum breakthrough capacities for 5%TiO2/GO, 10 %TiO/GO and 5%N-TiO2/GO was obtained at 220 °C as 0.25, 0.20 and 0.17 gS/g sorbent, respectively. The 5%N-TiO2/GO was found to be the best nanoadsorbent due to its lower band gap, higher surface area, synergic effects and presence of active sites of N-TiO2 over the nanoadsorbents. The H2S uptake capability of the 5%N-TiO2/GO nanoadsorbent was reduced to about 30–60 % after 2 regeneration cycles due to the chemisorption.