LAUSR

Abstract As a significant component in desulfurizers, iron-based desulfurizer has already been widely investigated in the past decades because of their convenience, low cost and high sulfur capacity. In this work, the highly active hydrated ferric oxide (HFO) nanoparticles anchored on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were synthesized via the co-precipitation method. The result of the H2S breakthrough capacity test indicated that the low-temperature desulfurization performance of HFO was significantly promoted by adding of MWCNTs. The best desulfurization performance (144.2 mg g−1) was obtained using the sample with 20 wt% MWCNTs. The structure of formation of HFO is equivalent to the predicted structure by generating simulated powder X-ray diffraction patterns using the Reflex module of Material Studio 2019. The calculation results from VASP show the highly dispersed HFO nanoparticles were anchored on MWCNTs surface, which means the Fe-O-C bond was formed. The improved desulfurization performance was attributed to the dispersion of HFO nanoparticles and more exposed adsorption sites due to the strong interaction between MWCNTs and HFO.