Preparation of odour removal catalysts with self-regeneration capability

Abstract

Odours remain at the top of air pollution complaints both indoor and outdoor, which can come from sewage, rotten food, and human digestions. Activated carbon has been used to absorb the odour materials, but its physical absorption can easily be saturated and could be a potential pollution source when less odour compounds exist in the surrounding environment. Here, for the first time, we have developed an activated carbon-alumina composite-supported ZnCu bimetallic metal oxide catalyst, which not only has very high capacity to absorb the strong smell sulfide, but also can convert sulfide into sulfur by the oxygen in air and the organic sulfur into sulfone, which removes the odour material in a chemical way and also endows the self-regeneration ability for the sorbent, leading to a longer and more efficient way to control odour in air. The ZnCu catalyst which contains 50 % of active carbon in the support has the highest sulfur capacity. The preparation parameters, such as calcination temperature, composition of the active components, and the test conditions, have a significant effect on the odour removal capability, and the conversion over the catalyst. The main structure of the bimetallic oxide catalysts does not change even after halfyear industrial site use, which completely converts sulfur into sulfur powder and also convert CO into CO 2 . The surface morphology changes, while the main crystalline structure remains, which showed the self-regenerability of the catalyst.