Sum of ranking differences in comparison of nickel-coated carbon nanofibers adsorbents in capacity and randomness of 1-butanethiol (1-butyl mercaptan) adsorption

Desulfurization of petroleum derivatives has been one of the main concerns of producers. Application of adsorption in desulfurization is one of the reliable strategies. Thus, development of new and better adsorbents is main goal of researchers. In this work, carbon nanofibers were coated with nickel by electroless plating method to be used in adsorption of 1-butanethiol (1-butyl mercaptan) for the first time. Nickel amount in these structures was varied and adsorption behavior studied. To characterize the prepared adsorbent, concentration variation of mercaptan was determined by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with multivariate curve resolution–alternating least squares chemometrics method as a new way. Also, potentiometry method was used to determine the mercaptan concentration during the adsorption process as a standard method. The data which were achieved by the two mentioned methods are processed by sum of ranking differences chemometrics method separately to compare the adsorption behavior of adsorbents. By using sum of ranking differences, it was concluded that with increment in amount of coated nickel, adsorption capacity would increase and random behavior in adsorption process would decrease. Also, this study showed that attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with multivariate curve resolution–alternating least squares can be applied to study the concentration variations of mercaptan as a reliable method.