The PI Annual Report 2009 - The Petroleum Institute

Chemical Engineering Department
Sulfur Recovery from Gas Stream using Flameless and Flame Combustion Reactor
The objective of this project is to study thermal processes involved in recovering sulfur from sour gas by conventional
flame combustion, as well as by flameless combustion, using numerical and experimental data. This is expected to
lead to optimal operating conditions for enhanced sulfur conversion. The proposed experiments will study flameless
combustion processes in the Claus furnace and the results compared with those from the normal flame process, to
determine if there has been any improved performance. Different operating conditions will be studied in this project,
using exhaust gas analyses of both flame and flameless modes of reactor operation to obtain enhanced sulfur
recovery.
Mixing characteristics of reactants in the Claus process were studied in cross-flow geometry last year under nonreactive
conditions, and the preliminary results further validated the reduced mechanism. The different cases examined
had a constant momentum flux ratio between the non-reactive and reactive cases. The flow pattern, as well
as mixing length, has been investigated for the various configurations examined.
Catalytic Removal of Sulfur from Process Gas Streams without Hydrogen Addition: Effect of Zeolites Topology,
Composition and Mesoporosity
This project was proposed by UMN and is expected to generate hydrogen in situ through dehydrogenation of short
chain alkanes e.g. propane, which has the potential to be used in the hydrodesulfurization of sulfur containing molecules
from oil fractions. Central to this project is the development of bi-modal zeolites with micro and meso-pores.
This is the third year the project has been underway and will lead to co-feeding experiments using thiophene and
propane co-reactants later this year.
Catalytic Alkane Metathesis
This project’s goal is to develop an efficient catalytic system able to activate inert C-H bonds to allow low temperature
non-oxidative conversion of saturated hydrocarbons to alkenes. Research will focus on developing synergistic
cooperation of experimental and computational techniques and will involve three phases: (1) developing basic experimental
and computational tools suitable for the proposed research (2) synthesis and characterization of different
catalytic systems to develop synergy between the two approaches and characterize the structural properties of
single-site metal centers supported on zeolite frameworks; (3) investigation into microscopic mechanisms of catalytic
reactions that will establish structure-function relationships that will lead to development of optimal catalytic systems.
Coatings for Catalytic and Photo-catalytic Processes
This research is expected to offer reliable techniques for coating carbon or silicon carbide foams with activated carbon,
alumina, or zeolites. The coatings must offer a high resistance to attrition and very high adhesion to the support
material, to avoid any “peeling-off” effects during on-stream utilization.
Annual Report 2009 The Petroleum Institute
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