Hydrogen sulfide removal from low concentration gas streams using metal supported mesoporous silica SBA-15 adsorbent

The removal of hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) from gas mixtures is paramount as it can cause environmental damage, corrosion, and catalyst poisoning even at low concentration levels (100–200 mg/L). In this work, a series of Fe-Cu oxides supported SBA-15 materials were prepared using the wet incipient impregnation method with different Fe and Cu atomic ratios to evaluate the H₂S removal performance. It was found that the H₂S adsorption capacity generally increases with an increase in the CuO loading, with a Cu-Fe atomic ratio of 1.0:0.3 displaying the highest breakthrough H₂S adsorption capacity of 74.08 mg H₂S/g-sorbent. Through the XPS results, the adsorbent existed in the form of sulfate, sulfide, and elemental sulfur after reacting with H₂S. In particular, it was confirmed that Fe₂O₃ helps to improve the H₂S removal performance by creating an alkaline environment. The material with superior performance showed high capacity at low concentration compared to several published reports.