Zinc Oxide in the front end of a hydrogen plant is typically used in a hot design, after some HDS catalysts (CoMo or NiMo). The Zinc Oxide really is best at picking up H2S and the HDS converts the mercaptans to H2S. It will also convert organic chlorides to HCL so that alumina can be use to remove that. HDS requires that some hydrogen be in the feed, either recycle or with the incoming feed. Sulfur must also be present for the conversion to take place and care must be taken to insure that the catalyst does not become desulfied.
Some cold designs don't have enough temperature for the HDS conversion. In these cases Zinc can pick up some of the light mercaptans but it is not very effient. The theoritical maximums for H2S for the Zinc is about 32%, for the light mercaptans you drop down to only a couple of percent.
If you must go to a design with out a hot HDS front end, you should look at a metal oxide blend for the absorbent. A copper oxide, Zinc Oxide combination has shown very effective at removing mercaptans all the way down to ambient temps. These are optimized products but are simliar to the way the modern low temperature shift catalysts can poison.