Operando sulfur speciation during sulfur poisoning-regeneration of Ru/SiO(2) and Ru/Al(2)O(3) using non-resonant sulfur Kα(1,2) emission

A periodic oxidative regeneration of a sulfur-poisoned methanation catalyst is an alternative to the expensive state-of-the-art process of syngas cleaning using wet scrubbers. Here we have employed operando X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) to study sulfur speciation on Ru/SiO(2) and Ru/Al(2)O(3) during methanation in the presence of H(2)S and subsequent regeneration in dilute O(2) at 360 °C. XES allowed us to obtain semi-quantitative sulfur speciation and to monitor changes in the absolute sulfur concentration. It was established that Al(2)O(3), in contrast to SiO(2), forms sulfite/sulfate species by reacting with SO(2), which is released from the poisoned Ru surface upon oxidative treatment. The concentration of sulfite/sulfate species is reduced upon switching the feed to H(2)/CO while no simultaneous increase in sulfide concentration is observed. For both catalysts, the regenerative treatment removes adsorbed sulfur as SO(2) only partially, which we propose is the main reason for the incomplete activity recovery of the poisoned catalyst after regeneration.