Abstract Natural gas deep desulfurization process by zinc oxide adsorbent is an example of noncatalytic gas-solid reactions, which plays a crucial role in petrochemical and refinery industries. In this paper, it was tried to model the desulfurization process using grain model. In order to analyze the adsorbent properties, a commercial sample was tested by BET, XRF, SEM and, mercury porosimetry. The results of the numerical model were validated against the experimental data from a packed-bed reactor. The breakthrough time of the model was estimated with less than 5% error, indicating a good correspondence with experiments. The concentration profiles along the bed and inside the pellets have been also explored under the industrial conditions. The predicted breakthrough time for the commercial adsorbent has been estimated around 215 days. To identify the influential process parameters on the lifetime of the adsorbent bed, and degree of the bed conversion, the sensitivity analysis was performed in terms of natural gas flow rate and hydrogen sulfide concentration. Interestingly, the obtained results indicated that increasing the unit capacity by 10%, will decline the breakthrough time by 30 days. Furthermore, varying the H2S content of the inlet gas by 25% will shorten the breakthrough time of the commercial sorbent by 60 days.

中文翻译：

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商业氧化锌吸附剂对天然气深度脱硫：固定床反应器的数学研究

摘要 氧化锌吸附剂的天然气深度脱硫工艺是非催化气固反应的一个例子，在石油化工和炼油工业中起着至关重要的作用。在本文中，尝试使用颗粒模型对脱硫过程进行建模。为了分析吸附剂的特性，通过 BET、XRF、SEM 和水银孔隙率测定法测试了商业样品。根据来自填充床反应器的实验数据验证了数值模型的结果。模型的突破时间估计误差小于5%，与实验吻合良好。在工业条件下也探索了沿床和球团内部的浓度分布。预计商用吸附剂的突破时间约为 215 天。为了确定对吸附床寿命和床转化程度有影响的工艺参数，根据天然气流速和硫化氢浓度进行了敏感性分析。有趣的是，获得的结果表明，单位容量增加 10%，突破时间将减少 30 天。此外，将入口气体的 H2S 含量改变 25% 会将商业吸附剂的穿透时间缩短 60 天。