Towards improving H2S catalytic oxidation on porous carbon materials at room temperature: A review of governing and influencing factors, recent advances, mechanisms and perspectives

Given that H2S detrimentally affects various aspects of human life including an environment, health, industrial infrastructure and catalytic processes, its removal from various gas streams is of paramount importance. As the most promising alternative, room temperature H2S catalytic oxidation on carbon-based materials attracted extensive attentions owing to its low costs, high efficiency and a possibility of sulfur recovery. These catalysts’ features such as a high surface area, adjustable porosity, enriched surface chemistry, easy surface modification and good conductivity, bring advantage to the desulfurization processes. This review focuses on ambient H2S catalytic oxidation on carbonaceous materials, highlights the importance of various factors governing and influencing the performance and critically analyzes recent findings. It also comprehensively summarizes the results collected on various carbonaceous materials and systematically outlines plausible catalytic oxidation mechanisms. Based on the collected results, some challenges needed to be addressed to further advance the field are pointed out.