(139d) Preparation and Characterization of Microfiber Impregnated Reinforced Alumina Supported ZnO Catalyst

Sulfur removal from refinery streams becoming more and more challenging due to the stringent environmental regulations. Reactive adsorption is a desulfurization technique that can be applied to remove the last ppm sulfur from fuels. For this purpose, a kind of microfiber impregnated alumina supported ZnO catalysts were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation (IWI) technique followed by sintering in air at 450-500 C. 8-micrometer diameter E-type glass and silica fibers were utilized to entrap porous Al2O3 support particulates. Zinc oxide (ZnO), a most active component to remove sulfur species, was then dispersed on the Al2O3 pore surface at room temperature using Zn(NO3)2 aqueous solutions as a precursor. The resulting microfibrous catalysts took advantage of high void volume, heat/mass transfer, surface area, permeability, contacting efficiency etc. The structure and the morphology of the porous materials were characterized by XRD, SEM/EDS, EDAX, XPS, N2 Adsorption-desorption. The physicochemical properties of the microfibrous ZnO/Al2O3 catalysts were juxtaposed with traditional ZnO/Al2O3 catalysts of similar compositions. Compared between microfibrous catalyst and reference catalyst, the surface areas were increased by 19.5% and the pore structure became more uniform in same size range.