The recovery of waste heat from Aurubis’ copper smelting operation in Hamburg is already helping to reduce global carbon emissions and has the potential to provide heat for up to 20,000 homes through the district heating network in Hamburg’s HafenCity. The energy for the network comes from waste heat that Aurubis recovers from their sulphuric acid plant, using unique Alfa Laval plate heat exchanger technology.
This June marks a milestone for this magazine; a platinum jubilee since the very first issue of the magazine was printed in 1953. It began life as the Quarterly Bulletin of the Sulphur Exploration Syndicate. The Syndicate was created in 1952, and was backed by nine major chemical producers, mainly in Britain and the US, who were concerned about dwindling world supplies of sulphur. Though some of these companies have vanished by the wayside over the years, including F.W. Berk and Co. Ltd, British Titan Products, Brotherton & Co., and Charles Tenant & Sons Ltd, others remain household names to this day, including Monsanto, Courtaulds (now part of Akzo-Nobel), and Dunlop (now owned by Goodyear), while Fisons’ fertilizer division was sold to Norsk Hydro in 1982 and today trades as part of Yara.
The modern sulphur industry is in effect a response to the environmental problems created by the presence of sulphur compounds in oil and gas, and the consequent release of sulphur dioxide when they are burned. The tens of millions of tonnes extracted, formed, traded and used for sulphuric acid production every year would otherwise be entering the atmosphere and causing health issues, especially in major cities, or returning as acid rain. One of the most recent step changes in sulphur recovery has come from the extension of rules on sulphur content of fuels that have been commonplace for road vehicles for many years into the maritime transport sphere. The International Maritime Organisation has mandated a reduction in sulphur content of bunker fuels to 0.5% worldwide, and 0.1% in busy shipping regions that have become designated emissions control areas (ECAs). Because bunker fuels were made from refinery residues, they often had high concentrations of sulphur in them; the limit before 2020 was 3.5%. As a result, a recent paper by two climate scientists calculates that global SO2 emissions have dropped by as much as 10% since 2020 because of the IMO limits. Given that atmospheric sulphur dioxide is responsible for an estimated 20-90,000 preventable deaths per year, this is surely a good thing.
Meena Chauhan, Head of Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for sulphur.
The centre of gravity of the phosphate industry continues to shift, with Chinese exports less important, and fresh demand coming from India and Brazil.
In 2019 Topsoe launched its ClearView™ technology for WSA and SNOx sulphuric acid plants. ClearView™ is a revolutionary process health monitoring software solution to help sulphuric acid plant operators ensure plants run better, more stable and with less downtime. Now, three years later, ClearView™ has been successfully implemented at two WSA plants and several other chemical plants of Topsoe’s design, with many others in the pipeline. This article focuses on the results and learnings from the first implementation of ClearView™ at a new WSA plant at Anglo American Platinum’s Polokwane smelter in South Africa.
Indonesian imports have increased in 2023 so far on a year earlier. As new nickel high pressure acid leach projects ramp up, demand for sulphur is expected to increase further. Swing buyers have been importing significant volumes of sulphuric acid, affecting short term sulphur demand in the second quarter. It remains to be seen if this will continue, we expect sulphur demand to ramp up further in the second half of the year, bringing import expectations for the year to around 2 million t.
Single superphosphate (SSP) is relatively easy and cheap to make. Yet traditional gas scrubbers often limit production and create plant maintenance issues.Fortunately, an innovative scrubbing technology developed by Armatec Environmental can overcome many of these problems. Based on high efficiency void towers, this new approach helps SSP producers meet stringent global emissions standards, explains Armatec’s Shane Pope , while simultaneously maximising production and improving worker conditions.
Meena Chauhan , Head of Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for sulphur.
The production of renewable fuels by retrofitting existing refineries and their infrastructure is witnessing exponential growth. The impact on the existing amine, sour water and sulphur recovery units is inevitable. Based on several case studies, Marco van Son, Shashank Gujale and Tammy Chan of Worley Comprimo discuss the various options available to holistically review the sulphur block to determine the impact and mitigation of processing bio-feed.