Separation of Hydrogen Sulfide from Butane Gas Mixture by Zeolite 13X

The Zeolitic adsorbent is successfully synthesized by natural Iranian kaolin to the separation of hydrogen sulfide from a gas mixture. In this work, zeolite 13X from modified natural Iranian kaolin at 65 °C for 72 h at various concentrations of caustic soda solution was synthesized using a metakaolinization process at 900 °C for 2h. By Taguchi’s experimental design, the best duration and temperature of crystallization were 72 h and 65 °C. Prepared zeolite 13X was characterized using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transforms InfraRed (FT-IR) spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and N2 adsorption-desorption methods. In addition, the adsorption capacity of zeolite 13X for 310 ppm of hydrogen sulfide mixed with hydrocarbon gas-like butane was investigated using a volumetric method by two different detectors and different temperatures. After the adsorption process, the amount of H2S in output gas was about 108 ppm and this confirms approximately more than 65% adsorption at 25 bar and 298K. The results are in good agreement with the experimental results.