Tunable Shape Microwave Synthesis of Zinc Oxide Nanospheres and Their Desulfurization Performance Compared with Nanorods and Platelet-Like Morphologies for the Removal of Hydrogen Sulfide

Abstract

A tunable shape microwave synthesis of ZnO nanospheres in a cosolvent mixture is presented. The ZnO nanospheres material is investigated as a desulfurizing sorbent in a fixed bed reactor in the temperature range 200–400 °C and compared with ZnO nanorod and platelet-like morphologies. Fresh and sulfided materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction, BET specific surface area, pore volume, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. The tunable shape microwave synthesis of ZnO presents a high sulfur sorption capacity at temperatures as low as 200 °C, which accounts for three and four times the other preparations presented in this work, and reached 76% of the theoretical sulfur capacityat 300 °C.