Al-Khawarizmi Engineering Journal (Oct 2013)
Simulation of a Wet Sulfuric Acid Process (WSA) for Utilization of Acid Gas Separated from Omani Natural Gas
Abstract
In this study, a proposed process for the utilization of hydrogen sulphide separated with other gases from omani natural gas for the production of sulphuric acid by wet sulphuric acid process (WSA) was studied. The processwas simulated at an acid gas feed flow of 5000 m3/hr using Aspen ONE- V7.1-HYSYS software. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the optimum conditions for the operation of plant. This included primarily the threepacked bed reactors connected in series for the production of sulphur trioxidewhich represented the bottleneck of the process. The optimum feed temperature and catalyst bed volume for each reactor were estimated and then used in the simulation of the whole process for two cases namely 4 and 6 mole% SO2 stream fed to the first catalytic reactor. The 4mole% SO2 gaves the highest conversion (98%) compared with 6 mole% SO2 (94.7%). A valuable quantity of heat was generated from the process. This excess heat could also be transformed into power in a turbine or used as a heating media in neighbouring process units.
