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Chemical Technology Subject Code: CH2001

This document provides information about sulfuric acid, including its properties, grades, production processes, and the contact process used to produce it. The contact process involves burning sulfur to produce sulfur dioxide, oxidizing the sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide using a vanadium catalyst, and absorbing the sulfur trioxide into concentrated sulfuric acid to form oleum. The oleum is then diluted with water to produce concentrated sulfuric acid. It describes the equipment used and optimal temperature conditions for the reaction.

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38 views9 pages

Chemical Technology Subject Code: CH2001

This document provides information about sulfuric acid, including its properties, grades, production processes, and the contact process used to produce it. The contact process involves burning sulfur to produce sulfur dioxide, oxidizing the sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide using a vanadium catalyst, and absorbing the sulfur trioxide into concentrated sulfuric acid to form oleum. The oleum is then diluted with water to produce concentrated sulfuric acid. It describes the equipment used and optimal temperature conditions for the reaction.

Uploaded by

U SANKAR TEJO
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chemical Technology

Subject Code: CH2001


Lecture 7

1
Sulfuric acid (oil of vitriol)
Properties
Chemical formula H2SO4
Molar mass 98.079 g/mol
Appearance Clear, colorless liquid
Odor Odorless
3
Density 1.8302 g/cm , liquid
Melting point 10.31°C (50.56 °F; 283.46 K) Ball-and-stick model
Boiling point 337°C (639 °F; 610 K) When sulfuric acid is above 300 °C (572 °F; 573
length = 142.2 pm,
K), it gradually decomposes to SO3 + H2O
Solubility in water miscible, exothermic S-O bond length =
Vapor pressure 0.001 mmHg (20 °C) 157.4 pm,
Acidity (pKa) -2.8±0.5, 1.99
O-H bond length = 97
Conjugate base Hydrogen sulfate pm
Viscosity 26.7 cP (20 °C)

2
Grades of sulfuric acid
Mass fraction Density Concentration
Common name
H2SO4 (kg/L) (mol/L)
<29% 1.00-1.25 <4.2 diluted sulfuric acid
battery acid
29–32% 1.25–1.28 4.2–5.0
(used in lead–acid batteries)
chamber acid
62–70% 1.52–1.60 9.6–11.5
fertilizer acid
tower acid
78–80% 1.70–1.73 13.5–14.0
Glover acid
93.2% 1.83 17.4 66 °Bé ("66-degree Baumé") acid
98.3% 1.84 18.4 concentrated sulfuric acid

3
Sulfuric production by contact process videos

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Bu3ns9Ii80M
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjLUJ-7m5v8
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zj3bMjFclA

4
Sulfuric acid production process
• Sulfuric acid is produced from sulfur, oxygen and water via the
conventional contact process (DCDA) or the wet sulfuric acid
process (WSA) and Lead chamber process.
• All processes are based on the SO2. chamber process was developed first
(1746) but produced acid of concentration less than 80%. Contact process
yields 98% h2so4 and higher which can be diluted, if necessary. Chamber
process is virtually obsolete.
• the Contact Process for the manufacture of sulphuric acid, which
goes on to explain the reasons for the conditions used in the process.
• Effect of proportions, temperature, pressure and catalyst on the
composition of the equilibrium mixture, the rate of the reaction and
the economics of the process.

5
Process
• In the first step, sulfur is burned to produce sulfur dioxide.
S (s) + O2 → SO2
• The sulfur dioxide is oxidized to sulfur trioxide by oxygen in the presence of a
vanadium(V) oxide catalyst. This reaction is reversible and the formation of the
sulfur trioxide is exothermic.
2 SO2 + O2 2 SO3
• The sulfur trioxide is absorbed into 97–98% H2SO4 to form oleum (H2S2O7), also
known as fuming sulfuric acid. The oleum is then diluted with water to form
concentrated sulfuric acid.
H2SO4 + SO3 → H2S2O7
H2S2O7 + H2O → 2 H2SO4
• Directly dissolving SO3 in water is not practiced.
• As this process is an exothermic reaction so the temperature should be as low as
possible. The yield has been found to be maximum at about 410 - 450° C.

6
Flow sheet of production process
• Purification of the air and sulfur
dioxide (SO2) is necessary to For, 1 Ton of H2SO4
avoid catalyst poisoning. SO2 = 0.67 ton
• Hot sulfur trioxide passes through Air = 1450-2200 Nm3
the heat exchanger and is
dissolved in concentrated H2SO4 in
the absorption tower to
form oleum:
• Oleum is reacted with water to
form concentrated H2SO4.

Catalyst
• Widely used catalyst is vanadium
pentoxide dispersed on a porous
carrier in the pellet form.
• Platinum catalyst was previously
used but suffers from easy poising,
fragility, rapid heat deactivation,
high initial investment.
7
Characteristics of catalysis
• Porous carrier
• Active catalytic agent
• Promoter

Advantages/disadvantages
• Relatively immune to poisons
• Low initial investments and only 5% replacement per year
• Requires only 10 kg catalyst mass containing 7-8%V2O5 per daily ton of 100%
acid.
• Must use dilute SO2 input (7-10%) as catalyst is less active and requires high
O2/SO2 to give economic conversion.
• Larger convertors and higher initial investment are necessary.

8
Process description
• Air-SO2 gas containing 7-10% SO2 and 11-14% O2 is preheated by convertor
gas, if necessary and sent to first stage of steel construction. This is the high
temperature (500-600 C) stage, contain 30% to the total catalyst and convert
about 80% of SO2.
• The convertor product is cooled by heat exchange at 300C and fed to a second
stage where total yield is increased to 97% by operating at 400-450C for
favourable equilibrium.
• High yields product gases are cooled to 150C by water and air heat exchangers
and absorbed in oleum fed at a rate to allow not over a 1% rise in acid strength.
Final scrubbing is done with a lower strength (97%) acid. Oleum concentration
up to 40% can be made by tower absorption. Higher strength oleum up to 65%
is prepared by distilling 20% oleum.

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