Spherical activated carbons supported with elemental Ag

Cu

and Ni were synthesized by cation exchange of type 122 phenolic cation exchange resin followed by carbonization and activation.The pore structure and the metal loading state of the activated carbons were characterized with N2 adsorption

X-ray diffraction (XRD)

and scanning electron microscope (SEM)

respectively.Characterization results showed that metals in the activated carbons existed in elemental form

and the specific surface area and pore volume of the activated carbons decreased slightly compared with unsupported activated carbon.The desulfurization performance of the activated carbons was evaluated by adsorptive removal of thiophene from thiophene-cyclohexane binary solution with breakthrough sulfur capacity as the criterion for evaluation.The adsorption mechanism of thiophene on these activated carbons was discussed.The adsorption experimental results showed that the breakthrough sulfur capacity of Ag

Cu

and Ni loaded spherical activated carbons were 3.66，4.43 and 5.07 mg8226;g-1

respectively

in contrast with 1.46 mg8226;g-1 for unsupported carbon.