Study of olivine supported copper sorbents performances in the desulfurization process in link with biomass gasification

In this study, a Cu/olivine system was prepared with different loading (3–10wt.%) by wet impregnation method and calcined at different temperatures in order to raise and to optimize its performances in the presence and in the absence of hydrogen in desulfurization process during gasification of biomass. The Cu/olivine catalysts are as well characterized by XRD and H2-TPR experiments. XRD patterns are found to show formation of copper and iron oxides and mixed Cu–Fe oxides after calcination process. H2-TPR results revealed that the materials calcined in the 900–1000 °C temperature range were more difficult to reduce than those calcined at lower temperatures because of their strong interactions between copper and olivine material. Desulfurization over 3% Cu/olivine sorbent calcined in the 900–1000°C temperature range has been considered to be the best materials offering the highest breakthrough times and the highest amounts of H2S removed in the presence or in the absence of hydrogen with low production of SO2. Regeneration/sulfidation cycles performed on 3% Cu/olivine sorbent calcined at 1000°C revealed that the material is not deactivated and exhibits the same performances after 10cycles.