Selective catalytic oxidation of H2S to elemental sulfur over V2O5/Zr-pillared montmorillonite clay

The performance of vanadia-doped zirconia-pillared clay (V/Zr-PILC) for the selective catalytic oxidation of H2S was investigated in this study. A series of vanadia-doped zirconia pillared clays (V/Zr-PILCs) with various amounts of vanadia were prepared and characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), surface area-pore volume measurements, chemical analysis, infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, UV–vis-diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis-DRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and thermogravimetric (TG) analysis. V/Zr-PILCs showed better catalytic performance than Zr-PILC at temperatures ranging from 220–300 °C without any considerable SO2 emission. The H2S conversion over V/Zr-PILCs increased with increasing vanadia content up to 6 wt%. However, it decreased at higher vanadia loadings due to the decrease of surface area and to the formation of the crystalline V2O5 phase. The results of a regeneration experiment using 6 wt% V/Zr-PILC catalyst showed good reproducibility in its catalytic activity, even through five successive sulfidation-regeneration cycles at 280 °C.