Sulfur dioxide oxidation catalytic reactors

Several other reports have also shown the importance of effective catalyst wetting on the performance of a bench-scale trickle-bed reactor. Hartman and Coughlin37 concluded that for sulfur dioxide oxidation in qojjntercurrejQt trickle-bed reactor packed with carbon particles, the catalyst was not completely wet at low liquid flow rates (of the order of 5 x 10 4 cm s-1). Sedricks and Kenney86 found that, during catalytic hydrogenation of crotonaldehyde in a cocurrent trickle-bed reactor, liquid seeped. into dry palladium-on-alumina... 

The laboratory scale physical model of the catalytic sulfur dioxide oxidation is a 0.05 m-diameter reactor containing 3 mm-diameter pellets of catalyst over a height of 0.15 m. The bed is flushed through at 430 °C by a gas flow that contains 0.07 kmol S02/kmol total gas, 0.11 kmol 02/kmol total gas and 0.82 kmol N2/kmol total gas. The gas spatial velocity is 0.01 m/s. 

A derivative of the Claus process is the Recycle Selectox process, developed by Parsons and Unocal and Hcensed through UOP. Once-Thm Selectox is suitable for very lean acid gas streams (1—5 mol % hydrogen sulfide), which cannot be effectively processed in a Claus unit. As shown in Figure 9, the process is similar to a standard Claus plant, except that the thermal combustor and waste heat boiler have been replaced with a catalytic reactor. The Selectox catalyst promotes the selective oxidation of hydrogen sulfide to sulfur dioxide, ie, hydrocarbons in the feed are not oxidized. These plants typically employ two Claus catalytic stages downstream of the Selectox reactor, to achieve an overall sulfur recovery of 90—95%. 

Olson, Schuler, and Smith (86) have studied the catalytic oxidation of sulfur dioxide in a differential fixed bed reactor. 

Industrial scale production of sulfuric acid is dependent on the oxidation of sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide in fixed bed catalytic reactors. 

Medeiros et al. (2001) studied the catalytic oxidation of sulfur dioxide on active carbon particles in a trickle-bed reactor at 25 °C and 1.1 atm ... 

Example 4.5 Suppose the recycle reactor in Figure 4.2 is used to evaluate a catalyst for the manufacture of sulfuric acid. The catalytic step is the gas-phase oxidation of sulfur dioxide ... 

While the development of flue gas clean-up processes has been progressing for many years, a satisfactory process is not yet available. Lime/limestone wet flue gas desulfurization (FGD) scrubber is the most widely used process in the utility industry at present, owing to the fact that it is the most technically developed and generally the most economically attractive. In spite of this, it is expensive and accounts for about 25-35% of the capital and operating costs of a power plant. Techniques for the post combustion control of nitrogen oxides emissions have not been developed as extensively as those for control of sulfur dioxide emissions. Several approaches have been proposed. Among these, ammonia-based selective catalytic reduction (SCR) has received the most attention. But, SCR may not be suitable for U.S. coal-fired power plants because of reliability concerns and other unresolved technical issues (1). These include uncertain catalyst life, water disposal requirements, and the effects of ammonia by-products on plant components downstream from the reactor. The sensitivity of SCR processes to the cost of NH3 is also the subject of some concern. 

Example 5 Here, we maximize the conversion in the catalytic oxidation of sulfur dioxide in fixed-bed reactors, which has been investigated by Lee and Aris (1963). The reaction and the kinetics are described as follows ... 

The catalytic oxidation of sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide can also be carried out in a fluidized bed reactor. The gas to be converted is fed in at the bottom of a fluidized bed containing the catalyst in the form of abrasion resistant beads. The whole fluidized bed can be kept at the required temperature by removing the heat of reaction with a pipe cooler. This isothermal mode of operation enables gases with a higher sulfur dioxide content to be processed and more compact plants to be built. 

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