Preparation and Formation of Zeolite 5A from Local Kaolin Clay for Drying and Desuphurization of Liquefied Petroleum Gas

Abstract

This work deals with preparation of zeolite 5A from Dewekhala kaolin clay in Al-Anbar region for drying and desulphurization of liquefied petroleum gas. The preparation of zeolite 5A includes treating kaolin clay with dilute hydrochloric acid 1N, treating metakaolin with NaOH solution to prepare 4A zeolite, ion exchange, and formation. For preparation of zeolite 4A, metakaolin treated at different temperatures (40, 60, 80, 90, and 100 °C) with different concentrations of sodium hydroxide solution (1, 2, 3, and 4 N) for 2 hours. The zeolite samples give the best relative crystallinity of zeolite prepared at 80 °C with NaOH concentration 3N (199%), and at 90 and 100°C with NaOH concentration solution 2N (184% and 189%, respectively). Zeolite 5A was prepared by ion exchange of zeolite 4A prepared at 90°C and 2N NaOH concentration with 1.5 N calcium chloride solution at 90 °C and 5 hours, the ion exchange percentage was 66.6%. The formation experiments included mixing the prepared powder of 5A zeolite with different percentages of kaolin clay, citric acid and tartaric acid to form an irregular shape of zeolite granules. Tartaric acid binder gives higher bulk crushing strength than that obtained by using citric acid binder with no significant difference in the surface area. 7.5 weight% tartaric acid binder has the higher bulk crushing strength 206 newton with surface area 267.4 m2/g. Kaolin clay binder with 15 weight% gives the highest surface area 356 m2/g with bulk crushing strength 123 newton, it was chose as the best binder for zeolite 5A. The prepared granules of 5A zeolite were used for the adsorption experiments of H2O, and H2S contaminants from LPG. Different flow rates of LPG (3, 4, and 5 liter/minute) were studied. It was found that H2O is the strongly adsorbed component and H2S is the weakly adsorbed component. The best flow rate in this work for H2O, and H2S adsorption is 5 liter/minute of LPG. The adsorption capacity for H2O was 7.547 g/g and for H2S was 1.734 g/g.