OBTENCIÓN DE AZUFRE A PARTIR DE LOS GASES RESIDUALES DEL PROCESO DE REFINACIÓN DE CRUDO

Abstract

Obtaining sulfur from waste gases rich in hydrogen sulfide produced in the hydrotreatment of diesel and naphtha in oil refineries, has a direct contribution to lowering the environmental impact of this industry, and to increase the added value of production at a refinery. For this purpose, the most widely used process in the world is the socalled Claus process. This technology takes place in two reaction stages, the first in a combustion furnace where acid gas is burned, and the second, in a catalytic reactor at a lower temperature, to obtain a recovery of sulfur to levels above 95%. After that, the sulfur is separated from the waste gases by condensation. The problem is to obtain a high yield in sulfur, while minimizing energy consumption and increases the lifetime of the catalyst without affecting the production capacity. This paper models the process with the professional chemical plant simulator (HYSYS 3.2 and PSI v.1993) and to analyze the effect of key operational variables in the results.