Enabling High Efficiency and Rapid Regeneration of α-FeOOH@Fe-EDTA for Slurry Desulfurization

Efficient removal of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is significant for both basic catalytic science and industrial environmental chemistry. Herein, a novel slurry desulfurization process with honeycomb-like alpha-FeOOH@Fe-EDTA as a desulfurizer has been developed for the removal of H2S. The slurry reaction process is appropriate for processing H2S-polluted gas with a gas-liquid-solid reactor due to its good heat transfer and diffusion coefficient. The formation of Fe-EDTA coordination over alpha-FeOOH@Fe-EDTA effectively enhanced resistance to degradation and sulfation. Importantly, the Fe3+/Fe2+ redox mediator endows alpha-FeOOH@Fe-EDTA with high desulfurization efficiency and a rapid regeneration ability, thus achieving excellent desulfurization performance in a slurry reactor. FeOOH-3 gives a H2S breakthrough capacity of 55.1%, which is far higher than that of commercial FeOOH. More importantly, after the fourth to sixth regenerations, the FeOOH-3@Fe-EDTA displays steady performance in the initial 20 min, constantly displaying an outlet H2S concentration close to 0 ppm.