Advanced sulfur control concepts for hot gas desulfurization technology. Quarterly report, April--June 1995

Delivery of the Antek R-6000 total sulfur analyzer and modifications of the Shimadzu GC-14A gas chromatograph are scheduled for early July. Installation and calibration of these instruments will follow shortly. The atmospheric pressure electrobalance was used during the quarter for studies of the regeneration of FeS with O{sub 2}/N{sub 2} gas mixtures. Some anomalies in the data initially obtained required adjustment of balance sensitivity, reduction of sample size, and recalibration of the air rotameter. The authors are now confident that they can routinely obtain accurate and reproducible data with this unit. Definitive tests of effects of temperature, O{sub 2} concentration, and gas flow rate will be done next quarter. The high pressure electrobalance was put into service, and calibration experiments were started. Decomposition of CuSO{sub 4}{center_dot}5H{sub 2}O produced agreement with expected results. Heating of FeS in an O{sub 2}/N{sub 2} gas stream gave results in qualitative agreement with experiments using the atmospheric pressure electrobalance. Initial tests on effects of temperature, O{sub 2} concentration, and gas flow rate on the regeneration of FeS were done. Results were generally in agreement with expectations and with previous experiments on the atmospheric apparatus. Possible problems arose when the lowest range of the air mass flow controller was used. Fluctuation of the electrobalance signal in the early part of the regeneration experiment was an additional problem. Effort during the next quarter will focus on these problems and on definitive tests for FeS regeneration at elevated pressure. The Alonized fixed bed reactor pressure vessel was successfully leak tested early in the quarter. Other components of the fixed bed reactor system continued to arrive. Construction will begin in July along with installation of the analytical instruments