(122e) Development of Sour PSA Technology for Gasification Markets

Doug Ruthven is one of the most prominent adsorption technologists of our time. He has achieved that status in part by his own personal dedication and hard work in the area, and also by partnering and collaborating with numerous colleagues in academia and in industry. His example of collegial engagement has been noted and often replicated in the subsequent careers of the large group of past graduate students and post docs.

 Air Products’ Sour PSA technology is an example of an industrial collaborative effort. Sour PSA is a competitive technology to solvent-based AGR systems currently employed to separate sulfur containing species, along with CO₂ and other impurities, from gasifier syngas streams. It utilizes pressure swing adsorption concepts to generate a sweet H₂ or syngas product stream along with an enriched CO₂/H₂S stream. The latter can be transformed into 1) an elemental sulfur or sulfuric acid stream and 2) a sulfur-free CO₂ stream applicable to CO₂–capture or non-CO₂-capture opportunities. Development efforts have ranged from laboratory tests of adsorbent feasibility to demonstration of cyclic PSA operation in the field. In this talk, I will highlight these collaborative efforts and the technical insight they have provided.