Synthesis Route to Sulfur Rich Porous Material for Thermal Insulation and Mercury Adsorption

The petroleum refining units produce excess amount of elemental sulfur annually via hydrodesulfurization; however the applications assosciated with elemental sulfur in bulk is limited except for production of sulfuric acid. Research activities contributing in finding useful applications for this excess sulfur is still in its initial stages. Here in we report synthesis route to chemically and structurally stable porous sulfur via sacrificial template and inverse vulcanization process. This methodology enabled processing of porous sulfur into various shapes with tunable thermo-mechanical properties. We also demonstrated that these porous materials exhbited low thermal conductivity comparable to that of commercially available thermal insulators (0.048 W/mK), along side a commercially comparable adsorption capacity of 150 ug/g.