Catalytic performance of vanadia-doped titania-pillared clay for the selective catalytic oxidation of H2S

A series of vanadia-doped titania pillared clay (V/Ti-PILC) with various amounts of vanadia were prepared and their performance for the selective catalytic oxidation of H2S was investigated in this study. V/Ti-PILCs were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), BET apparatus, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). V/Ti-PILCs showed better catalytic performance than as such Ti-PILC at temperatures ranging from 220 to 300 °C without any considerable SO2 emission. The H2S conversion over V/Ti-PILC increased with increasing vanadia content up to 5 wt.%. This superior catalytic performance might be related to the uniform dispersion of vanadia in the form of monomeric and polymeric species. However, it decreased at 10 wt.% vanadia loading due to the decrease of surface area and to the formation of crystalline V2O5 phase. The presence of water vapor in the reactant mixture resulted in the decrease of the H2S conversion.