An AXAFS study on the mechanism of reactive adsorption desulfurization of model oil over Ni/ZnO adsorbent

Atomic XAFS (AXAFS) originates from photoelectron scattering off electrons in bonds on the periphery of the absorber atom, the embedded-atom potential, the interstitial potential and the distribution of the absorber-atom electron density are all found to be important in determining the AXAFS intensity, hence AXAFS can be a very useful probe to monitor changes in the electronic and chemical structure of the absorber atom. In this work, we use AXAFS of Zn element to study the reaction mechanism of the calcined and the reduced adsorbent under different atmospheres, it is showed that hydrogen plays an important role in the desulfurization. In situ AXAFS of Zn element also exhibits the chemical structure evolution of Zn element during desulfurization at 350 ℃ and 3.0 MPa in the atmosphere of H₂.