Experimental Analysis and Model Validation on the Performance of Impregnated Activated Carbons for the Removal of Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) from Sewage Biogas

Davide Papurello,Andrea Lanzini,Marta Gandiglio

doi:10.3390/pr7090548

Davide Papurello, Andrea Lanzini + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/pr7090548

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Journal: Processes	Publication Date: Aug 21, 2019
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Polytechnic University of Turin

Abstract

Organic waste exploitation is crucial for waste emissions restraint in air, soil and water. This type of waste can be exploited to produce biogas, a valuable fuel exploitable for energy purposes. A circular approach for energy production is much cleaner and more sustainable than the traditional linear approach. In this work, organic waste was used for biogas production to feed a highly efficient solid oxide fuel cell power generator, which requires an ultra-purified fuel. Commercial sorbents were experimentally studied in conjunction with a dynamic adsorption model to predict the breakthrough time and organize the material change-over. In the presence of 0.1% oxygen in the gas mixture, AirDep® CKC showed a marked increase in the adsorption capacity (from 3.91 to 84.87 mg/g), overcoming SulfaTrap® R8G (49.91 mg/g). The effect of several operating parameters on adsorption capacity was evaluated: inlet H2S concentration, filter geometry and gas mixture velocity. Experimental data revealed that adsorption capacity increases with initial H2S concentration, following the typical trend of the Langmuir isotherm. Model simulations were in good agreement compared to experimental results, with an average relative error lower than 7%. A sensitivity analysis on the adsorption capacity was accomplished considering parameters from operational and empirical correlations.

Highlights

Organic waste exploitation is crucial for waste emissions restraint in air, soil and water
Biogas is a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide, with usually small amounts of hydrogen sulfide (H2 S), moisture and siloxanes and other trace compounds depending on the substrates and processes adopted [2,3,4,5]
A logarithmic correlation showed the best fit with determination coefficient R2 = 91.9% against R2 = 89.5% obtained through linear interpolation. This is probably due to the wider range of length-to-diameter ratio (L/D) values investigated in this work, from 1 to 3.3, against 0.32–1.32 of Sisani’s

Summary

Introduction

Organic waste exploitation is crucial for waste emissions restraint in air, soil and water This type of waste can be exploited for the production of energy in a clean way in order to limit emissions, the use of fossil fuels and to improve the circular recovery approach [1]. Biogas is a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide, with usually small amounts of hydrogen sulfide (H2 S), moisture and siloxanes and other trace compounds depending on the substrates and processes adopted [2,3,4,5] Such a gas mixture can be exploited in several ways [6,7,8,9,10]: . This is mainly because solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) shows higher electricity conversion as compared to other devices such as internal combustion engines (ICE) or gas turbines

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