Selective oxidation of H₂S over the LaCoO₃ catalyst

A series of LaCoO₃ catalysts were prepared by sol-gel method and characterized by XRD, BET and XPS; the effect of calcination temperature and content of surfactant PEG-6000 and PEG-20000 on the catalytic activity of LaCoO₃ in the selective oxidation of H₂S to sulfur was investigated. The results illustrated that adding surfactant PEG-6000 and PEG-20000 can significantly improve the catalytic activity of LaCoO₃ in H₂S oxidation; the LaCoO₃ catalyst prepared by adding 0.30 g PEG-20000 in the solution of 0.02 mol La(NO₃)₃ + 0.02 mol Co(NO₃)₂ and calcination at 650 ℃ exhibits the highest activity in H₂S oxidation. Over this catalyst and under the optimum reaction temperature of 260 ℃, the conversion of H₂S reaches 96.10%, with a selectivity of 93.77% to sulfur.