Beavon Sulfur Removal Process eliminates sulfur in Claus plant tail gas

The Beavon Sulfur Removal Process designed for the elimination of sulfur dioxide from Claus plant tail gas is described along with its successful installation and operation at a refinery of the Union Oil Company of California. The process converts essentially all of the sulfur compounds in Claus plant tail gas to high quality elemental sulfur and produces a treated gas containing below 100 ppMv of SO/sub 2/ equivalent. The process consists of two main operation sections: the hydrogenation/hydrolysis reactor where all forms of sulfur in the tail gas are converted to hydrogen sulfide in the presence of hydrogen and the Stretford section which makes use of a commercially proven wet chemical process to convert H/sub 2/S to high purity elemental sulfur. Installation of two 5LT/D BSRP units, each fed by a 100 LT/D Claus 3-stage sulfur plant, indicates successful operation of the Beavon process with the exception of initial problems with rotary vacuum sulfur filters (due to oversizing) and occasional plugging in the line carrying the sulfur slurry from the filter to the sulfur melter. The latter difficulty is solved by minor modifications to the system.