Adsorptive desulfurization of bioethanol using activated carbon loaded with zinc oxide

Adsorptive desulfurization of a model bioethanol that contained dimethylsulfide (DMS) as a sulfur impurity was investigated using an activated carbon loaded with zinc oxide. We studied the effect of the amount of zinc oxide loaded on the activated carbon as well as the effect of the other impurities, such as water, acetic acid and formic acid, on liquid-phase adsorption isotherms of DMS. The amount of adsorbed DMS on the activated carbon loaded with 10 wt.% of zinc oxide doubled as compared with the virgin activated carbon. It was also revealed that the amount of DMS adsorbed on the zinc-modified activated carbon was almost unchanged by the presence of the other impurities. Dynamic adsorption performance of the activated carbon was evaluated by the measurement of a packed-bed breakthrough curve (BTC). The measured BTC was fitted by a calculated BTC based on a numerical method to estimate the mass transfer parameters in the liquid-phase desulfurization process.