(420h) Low Temperature Catalysts for Direct Remediation of H2S Malodor in Air

Gabriel Kei Bo Cheung¹, Hao Chen^1,3,Wei Han¹, King Lun Yeung^1,2,*

¹Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, ²Division of Environment, ³Nano Science and Technology Program, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, P.R. China

*Corresponding author: kekyeung@ust.hk

Division:  22 Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum

Subdivision: 22001 Poster Session: Nanoscale Science and Engineering

Format: Poster

Abstract:

        Malodor causes discomfort, and long term exposure can have serious health consequences. H₂S is one of the major malodor pollutants generated from anaerobic decomposition of sulfur-containing organic matter, and often found in household and industrial wastes, especially along the sewer line.

Existing solutions to H₂S including Claus process, which uses catalyst to convert H₂S into sulfur at high temperature (about 500 K), and adsorbents, is energy-consuming and not sustainable. This work presents a new route to convert H₂S under room temperature and humid conditions, which suits for the applications near the malodor source such as sewer.

In this study, the vanadia-titania catalyst (V₂O₅/TiO₂) is successfully developed to treat H₂S at room temperature. The above catalyst was prepared by using rotary evaporator to evenly distribute ammonium vanadate on UV100 powder. The obtained catalysts are tested under different concentration ranging from 3.33 to 33.3ppm with a flow of 210cm³/min at room temperature. A conversion of 35% can be maintained for 25mg catalyst with 33.3ppm H₂S, 210cm³/min. The fresh and used catalysts were characterized by XRD, micro-Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy in order to identify the active sites and confirm the formation of elemental sulfur on the catalyst. The catalytic reaction under humid condition was also conducted, and the result shows that the catalytic performance of V₂O₅/TiO₂ catalyst is not sensitive to humidity of reaction system.