KINETICS OF DIRECT OXIDATION OF H2S IN COAL GAS TO ELEMENTAL SULFUR

Removal of hydrogen sulfide (H{sub 2}S) from coal gasifier gas and sulfur recovery are key steps in the development of Department of Energy's (DOE's) advanced Vision 21 plants that employ coal and natural gas and produce electric power and clean transportation fuels. These Vision 21 plants will require highly clean coal gas with H{sub 2}S below 1 ppm and negligible amounts of trace contaminants such as hydrogen chloride, ammonia, alkali, heavy metals, and particulate. The conventional method of sulfur removal and recovery employing amine, Claus, and tail-gas treatment is very expensive. A second generation approach developed under DOE's sponsorship employs hot-gas desulfurization (HGD) using regenerable metal oxide sorbents followed by Direct Sulfur Recovery Process (DSRP). However, this process sequence does not remove trace contaminants and is targeted primarily towards the development of advanced integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants that produce electricity (not both electricity and transportation fuels). There is an immediate as well as long-term need for the development of cleanup processes that produce highly clean coal gas for next generation Vision 21 plants. To this end, a novel process is now under development at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in which the H{sub 2}S in coal gas is directly oxidized to elemental sulfur over a selective catalyst. Such a process is ideally suited for coal gas from commercial gasifiers with a quench system to remove essentially all the trace contaminants except H{sub 2}S. This direct oxidation process has the potential to produce a super clean coal gas more economically than both conventional amine-based processes and HGD/DSRP. The objective of this research is to support the near- and long-term DOE efforts to commercialize this direct oxidation technology. Specifically, we aim to: Measure the kinetics of direct oxidation of H{sub 2}S to elemental sulfur over selective catalysts in the presence of major coal gas components; and Develop kinetic rate equations and model the direct oxidation process to assist in the design of large-scale Vision 21 plants