Enhanced adsorption and regeneration performances for methyl mercaptan capture by a metal-organic framework incorporated in a mesoporous silica

Cu-modified adsorbent is widely used in removing S-containing odor pollutant, such as methyl-mercaptan (CH3SH). Increasing the dispersion of adsorptive sites and improving the regeneration cycle efficiency are two important problems. In this work, a copper metal-organic framework (MOF) was synthesized by in-situ growing the Cu-MOF on SBA-15. Micro-morphology characterizations revealed that the Cu-MOFs grew inside the SBA-15 mesopore channels and showed a good dispersion. When the hybrid (Cu-MOF in SBA-15) and the Cu-MOFs were compared for the CH3SH removal, the hybrid removed 1.70-mol CH3SH per mol of Cu in the adsorbent. This adsorbent capacity was far bigger than Cu-MOFs (0.70 mol<middle dot>mol(-1)) and resulted from a better Cu-MOFs dispersion in SBA-15. Additionally, an easy and energy-saving hydrothermal method was put forward for the regeneration of the used adsorbent at 80 degrees C. The capacity of the regenerated material was higher than 70 % for at least 6 cycles. In addition, the regeneration temperature was far lower than that (> 350 degrees C) generally utilized in previous reports investigating cycled adsorption of CH3SH. The enhanced regeneration performances were attributed to the confinement effect of the SBA-15, which restrained the ligand around the Cu coordination centers. This work confirms the effective removal of odor-gas using a cost-effective regenerable adsorbent.