Both CO2 and H2S acid gases are present in significant concentrations in natural “sour” gas streams and need to be separated using energy intensive amine absorption methods. The captured CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere acting as a major greenhouse gas while H2S is combusted to yield elemental sulfur and water. A recent development proposed focuses on catalytic transformation of CO2 and H2S under reducing environments on K2O-WO3/Al2O3 catalyst to form a reactive methyl mercaptan (CH3SH) intermediate that can be further converted to value-added hydrocarbons (alkanes, olefins and aromatics) and H2S thus performing solventless separation and valorization of CO2. As a first step, we synthesized and characterized molecular and electronic structures of K2O-WO3/Al2O3 catalyst using in situ Raman, UV-vis and temperature programmed DRIFT-mass spectroscopies to assess the performance of this catalyst to facilitate discovery of novel catalytic materials that can function in the presence of acid gases.

K2O/WOx/Al2O3 catalyst structure for sour natural gas treatment

254th National Meeting (2017)

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