Enhanced H2S decomposition using membrane reactor

Abstract

H2S is a toxic gas released during many industrial processes, especially oil and gas refining. Currently, H2S is converted to sulfur using Claus process, but it leads to loss of another valuable product, i.e., hydrogen, in the form of water. Thermal decomposition of H2S in a membrane reactor is a promising route for recovering both hydrogen as well as sulfur in an efficient manner. In the present work, the authors report H2S decomposition studies with packed-bed membrane reactor (PBMR) using in-house developed clay-alumina ceramic membrane. In order to have a comparative evaluation, these studies were conducted in packed bed reactor (PBR) as well as in single-tube PBMR at different operation parameters. In PBMR, conversion of ∼90% was obtained at 1573 K and 0.5 bar, whereas a conversion of ∼50% was obtained in PBR. CFD simulations for H2S decomposition using ceramic PBMR were carried out and validated using experimental results. 3D simulations for parametric optimisation of multi-tube PBMR were also carried out by extrapolation of validated model. This is for the first time, CFD studies on H2S decomposition and its validation using ceramic PBMR are being reported in this work.