A Regenerable Sorbent for Deep Desulfurization of Alpha Pinene

Crude Sulfated Turpentine (CST) is a by-product of the Kraft wood pulping process, and its derivatives (e.g., terpenes such as alpha pinene) are used as fragrances in commercial products ranging from cosmetics to detergents. They can also be, and are, catalytically transformed into valuable chemicals by hydrogenation, oxidation and isomerization reactions. However, turpentine and its derivatives contain small but significant quantities of sulfur, which degrades the potency of the pinenes used as fragrances. Sulfur is also a highly potent catalyst poison that deactivates the precious metal and metal oxide catalysts used in the conversion processes. Hence there is need to remove sulfur from CST and pinene fractions in order to convert CST a waste stream from paper mills into a value added product.TDA isdeveloping a new, high capacity, regenerable sorbent to remove sulfur species from alpha pinene, and potentially from other terpene derivatives as well so that they can beconverted into value added chemicals.In this SBIR Phase II project, we will scale-up both the sorbent preparation methods develope din Phase I and demonstrate the sorbent's performance in an integrated system to assess the full capabilities of the desulfurizer and to turn the concept into a practical device. We will also carry out a detailed engineering analysis to assess the overall efficiency, size and cost of the desulfurizer to provide to our partners in the fragrance industry.