Apparatus and catalytic partial oxidation process for recovering sulfur from an H2S-containing gas stream
AssigneeConocoPhillips Company
InventorsSriram Ramani, Alfred E. Keller
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Abstract
The disclosed sulfur recovery system and process avoid some of the operational problems of conventional Claus plants and processes by replacing the reaction burner and furnace tube of a conventional Claus plant with a more efficient short contact time catalytic reactor assembly containing a SPOC™ catalyst that operates efficiently at elevated temperatures. Such Claus plant modification also reduces or avoids the negative effects of hydrocarbons, CO2 and ammonia in Claus sulfur plant feeds, and permits efficient processing of dilute to concentrated H2S feeds. The disclosed modification makes possible the expansion of Claus plant capacity at lower cost.
Claims11
A process for recovering sulfur from a H2S-containing gas stream comprising:
- directing a reactant gas stream comprising a mixture of H2S and O2 into a catalytic partial oxidation reaction zone with a partial oxidation catalyst under catalytic partial oxidation conditions and catalyzing the reactant gas stream to produce a first stage product gas stream;
- maintaining the temperature of said catalytic partial oxidation reaction zone above 500° C.;
- condensing gaseous elemental sulfur from said first stage product gas stream to provide liquid sulfur and a partially desulfurized first stage product gas stream comprising H2S and SO2;
- separating at least a portion of the liquid sulfur from the first stage product gas stream;
- directing the first stage product gas stream into a Claus reaction unit with Claus catalyst under Claus catalytic conditions and converting H2S and SO2 to elemental sulfur and water to yield a second stage product gas stream comprising elemental sulfur and water;
- and
- condensing elemental sulfur from said second stage product gas stream to provide a tail gas stream.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.