A H2S reactive adsorption process for the purification of biogas prior to its use as a bioenergy vector

The work reported in this paper focuses on a promising adsorbent available commercially and includes the “breakthrough” curves and the compilation of a phenomenological model for the process. These first results show that the rates of the external diffusion, internal diffusion and surface reaction steps are relatively close and that the limiting step of the process changes with experimental conditions. Globally, the phenomenological model predicts that the rate of the process is near first order with respect to the H2S concentration and zero order with respect to the solid reactant (adsorbent). The reported data constitute the basis for the scale-up of the unit at a commercial level.