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Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 000 (2015) 1–8

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Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers

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A process simulation study of hydrogen and sulfur production

from hydrogen sulfide using the Fe–Cl hybrid process
Rasheed A. Adewale, Abdallah S. Berrouk∗, Satyadileep Dara
Chemical Engineering Department, Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Presently, most of the acid gas (H2 S) streams from amine gas sweetening and refinery upgrading operations
Received 27 September 2014 are treated using the modified Claus process. In this process, sulfur and low-quality steam are produced by
Revised 10 March 2015
partial oxidation of H2 S. Despite the modified Claus process’s success in accomplishing the above tasks, it
Accepted 15 March 2015
still has some disadvantages. Additional tail gas treatment unit is needed to improve its efficiency. Also, a
Available online xxx
valuable commodity, hydrogen, is not recovered.
Keywords: In this work, a process simulation study on the Idemitsu Kosan Co. Fe–Cl hybrid process is carried out.
Fe–Cl hybrid process The process is capable of producing sulfur and hydrogen from H2 S gas streams. The process was modeled and
Hydrogen validated using pilot-scale plant data before been scaled up using the typical acid gas composition profile of
Hydrogen sulfide one of Abu Dhabi’s sulfur recovery plants. The effects the absorber solution flow rate and concentration have
Process simulation on the process’ operability were investigated. Operating at high ferric ions concentration was found to be
Ferrous ions
more beneficial compared to high solution flow rate operations. The ferrous ion constituent of the solution
Electrolyzer
proves to be instrumental in the downstream electrolysis process. Cost estimates of the process indicate the
suitability of the process to be implemented in Abu Dhabi gas plants to produce sulfur, and most importantly,
hydrogen to be used as fuel or chemical feedstock.
© 2015 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction additional tail gas treatment unit is required to improve H2 S clean-up

Large quantities of H2 S are annually produced globally mostly
from sour gas sweetening and heavy oil upgrading activities in re-
fineries [1–4]. Also, the increasing importance of hydrogen in indus-
trial applications and technological advancement cannot be overem-
phasized [5–7]. To achieve the triple objective of increasing hydrogen
energy sources, waste minimization and consequently meeting strict
environmental regulations, several methods for decomposing hydro-
gen sulfide into hydrogen and sulfur have been studied and compared
[1,8,9].
Presently, most of the acid gas (H2 S) streams generated from
amine gas sweetening and refinery upgrading operations are treated
using the modified Claus process [10–14]. Another but less common
method for the treatment of hydrogen sulfide is the wet absorption
process [15]. In the modified Claus process, sulfur and low-quality
steam are produced by partial oxidation of H2 S. Despite its success
in accomplishing the above tasks, it still has some disadvantages.
Firstly, the insufficient conversion of the Claus process means that
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +971 26075408; fax: +971 2607 5200.
E-mail addresses: radewale@pi.ac.ae (R.A. Adewale), aberrouk@pi.ac.ae,
berrouks@yahoo.fr (A.S. Berrouk), dsatyadileep@pi.ac.ae (S. Dara).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2015.03.018
1876-1070/© 2015 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
efficiency. Secondly, a valuable commodity, which is hydrogen, is not
recovered. Conversely, the wet absorption process which involves the
absorption–oxidation of hydrogen sulfide to elemental sulfur, with
the aid of an aqueous solution (e.g. sodium carbonate or ferric com-
plexes), does not require additional H2 S clean-up unit. This is due to
the very fast and highly selective nature of the oxidizing solution in-
volved in the process, ensuring that a negligible amount of H2 S is left
in the treated gas stream. However, it is also hydrogen consuming and
only economical for small scale sulfur recovery operations [15–17].
To overcome this disadvantage of wet absorption processes, a hybrid
type of this process which incorporates electrolysis has been studied
by many researchers [18–21].
The Japanese National Chemical Laboratory and Idemitsu Kosan
Co. (IKC) revealed a novel indirect electrolysis process for making
sulfur and hydrogen from H2 S [15,22]. The described process is capa-
ble of removing H2 S from gas streams and therefore can replace the
amine plant, Claus unit and tail gas treating.
This process comprises of a combination of an aqueous iron salt so-
lution treatment and an electrochemical regeneration step to recover
both hydrogen and sulfur from hydrogen sulfide. It was described by
Mizuta et al. [15] and Iida et al. [22] as outlined below with a process
flow diagram of the proposed scheme shown in Fig. 1.
Feed gas is contacted with strongly acidic solution containing ferric
chloride and sulfur formation follows the reaction (1).

Please cite this article as: R.A. Adewale et al., A process simulation study of hydrogen and sulfur production from hydrogen sulfide using the
Fe–Cl hybrid process, Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2015.03.018
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2 R.A. Adewale et al. / Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 000 (2015) 1–8
Fig. 1. Simplified flow diagram of the Fe–Cl hybrid process [15].
2FeCl3(aq) + H2 S(g) → 2FeCl2(aq) + 2HCl(aq) + S
Approximately 99% of the H2 S in the feed is removed with ferric
iron converted to ferrous. The spent electrolyte is regenerated by
applying a voltage of 0.75–0.9 V with a current density of 100 mA/cm2
at 70°C and sulfur passivation of the electrodes was not observed
[15,22]. The overall electrolysis reaction is as follows:
2FeCl2(aq) + 2HCl(aq) → H2(g) + 2FeCl3(aq)
This leads to the total decomposition to hydrogen and sulfur ac-
cording to reaction (3):
H2 S → H2(g) + S (net reaction)
In the first stage (absorption–oxidation step), H2 S-containing gas
is brought into contact with an aqueous hydrochloric acid–iron chlo-
ride solution containing ferric ions in an absorber. The absorbing
iron–salt solution is normally mixed with some ferrous ions to aid
the downstream electrochemical regeneration. According to reaction
(1), H2 S gas reacts smoothly with aqueous FeCl3 to produce sulfur,
aqueous HCl and FeCl3 is reduced to FeCl2 . This spontaneous reaction
translates into a sufficiently high level of H2 S absorption, 99% at about
70 °C, even in the presence of high acidic conditions.
Second step involves sulfur separation from the FeCl3 /FeCl2 /HCl
solution. Any of the conventional separation techniques can be em-
ployed in this process, whether chemical or physical. Melting of the
sulfur and consequent separation via liquid–liquid separation is a vi-
able chemical separation technique. The separation equipment could
be a usual thickener, a cavity drum, or a sedimentation pool. A vital
factor that will determine the appropriate separation equipment is
the size of the drops of melted sulfur and the recovery ratio.
In the final step (electrochemical regeneration step), the sulfur-
free solution comprising largely of ferrous ions is processed in an
electrolysis cell. These ferrous ions are converted to ferric ions at
the anode of the electrolytic cell in order to regenerate the absorbing
solution while hydrogen is generated at the cathode. The electrodes of
the electrolytic cell are made of acid-resistant materials like graphite
or carbon fiber. The diaphragm between the electrodes is a cation
exchange membrane. The theoretical electrolysis voltage for reaction
(2) is 0.77 V, however, this voltage could be lowered by increasing
the acidity of the aqueous solution, as a result of the decrease in the
activity of HCl in the presence of ferrous or ferric ions [23]. Although
the strong acidic condition is unfavorable to the absorption reaction,
Please cite this article as: R.A. Adewale et al., A process simulation study of hydrogen and sulfur production from hydrogen sulfide using the
Fe–Cl hybrid process, Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2015.03.018
[m5G;March 28, 2015;11:40]
(1) it is however advantageous to the overall Fe–Cl hybrid process as a
whole by virtue of the large decrease in the electrolysis voltage in
reaction (2).
As for power consumption, the IKC electrolysis process uses about
3.6 kWh per Nm3 of hydrogen produced which looks attractive com-
pared to water electrolysis, which consumes about 4.3 kWh/N m3 of
H2 and steam methane reforming (the standard process for making
discretionary hydrogen), which makes hydrogen using about 4.3 kWh
(2) of natural gas energy per cubic meter of hydrogen produced. Since
electrical energy is typically about 3 times more costly than natural
gas per unit of energy in countries such as Japan, the IKC process
will not be competitive with steam methane reforming for hydrogen
production. The situation is quite different in the gulf countries and
(3) in particular in UAE, where the cost of electrical energy subsidized
to refineries and gas plants by the government power plants is in-
credibly low (0.04 US$/kWh). Also, considering the recent UAE oil in-
dustry’ policies on waste minimization, environment protection, and
efficient exploitation of natural resources, IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process
should be a viable option for UAE refineries and gas plants to produce
hydrogen from H2 S streams to be used as chemical feedstock and fuel
respectively.
This paper outlines the results of a process simulation investi-
gation of the IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process as a suitable alternative to
the Claus process vastly used to handle H2 S in UAE gas plants and
refineries. The process model was developed and validated against
bench scale experimental data and then used to perform a paramet-
ric study to gain insight on the operability and economics of the Fe–Cl
hybrid process in the context of UAE economic reality.
2. Fe–Cl hybrid process simulation model
Simulation of the Idemitsu Kosan Co. (IKC) Fe–Cl hybrid process
was conducted using Aspen Plus R
V7.3 chemical process simula-
tion software using a steady state approach. The ELECNRTL property
method which is an activity coefficient model was used for the process
chemistry predictions. This choice was made because it incorporates
into the model the non-ideality of the process chemistry as a result
of the electrolyte solution used and the process operating conditions
[24].
Some FeCl3 and FeCl2 thermo-physical properties that are absent
in Aspen Plus R
were supplied from Yaw [25], Yaw and Gabbula [26],
Speight [27] and the DIPPR Project 801 [28] to the simulator database
for accurate predictions. The process reactions in Aspen Plus R
are
modeled in the form of apparent and true species. The apparent
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R
Fig. 2. Aspen Plus model of the IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process for sulfur and hydrogen production.

species are the user specified components while the true species are Table 1
Operating data for IKC bench scale plant.
the products of solution chemistry as a result of the aqueous phase
ionic reactions of the specified components depicted in reactions Absorber operating conditions
(4)–(11).
Temperature 60–80 °C
Pressure 1 atm
Equilibrium reactions: Flow rate of solution 1 l/min
HCl + H2 O ↔ Cl− + H3 O+ (4) Concentration of solution
FeCl2 0.96 mol/l
FeCl3 0.74 mol/l
H2 O + HCO3 − ↔ CO3 2− +H3 O+ (5) HCl 4.36 mol/l
Flow rate of sour gas 10 l/min
2H2 O + CO2 ↔ HCO3 − +H3 O+ (6) Composition of sour gas
H2 S 15%
H2 O + HS− ↔ H3 O+ + S2− (7) N2 85%
Electrolysis unit operating conditions
+ − Temperature 50 °C
H2 O + H2 S ↔ H3 O + HS (8)
Flow rate of electrolyte 1 l/min
Electrolysis voltage 0.74–0.76 V
2H2 O ↔ OH− + H3 O+ (9)

Dissociation reactions:

FeCl3 → Fe3+ + 3Cl− (10) where, F, E and FLOWH2 denote the Faraday’s constant, 96,486 C/mol,
electrolyzer potential (V) and flow rate of hydrogen (kmol/h) respec-
FeCl2 → Fe2+ + 2Cl− (11) tively. The stream HEAT-OUT expels excess heat as a result of Joule
heating out of the electrolyzer. A complete Aspen Plus R
model, for
The reaction in the absorber was assumed to reach equilibrium the IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process, is shown in Fig. 2.
and was therefore modeled with a Gibbs reactor. The Gibbs free en- The model was validated using published data, Table 1, of the
ergy minimization with phase splitting is used in the RGibbs simulator operation of a 3 kg/day sulfur and 2.1 Nm3 hydrogen bench scale
block to perform chemical and phase equilibrium calculations. In set- plant of the IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process [15,22].
ting up the RGibbs in Aspen Plus R
, possible products and phases of For the investigation of this process, the typical acid gas composi-
outlet streams are specified for chemical equilibrium computations. tion profile of a gas plant located in the region of Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. in
The sulfur separation operation was modeled using the “Sep” simu- Table 2 was also used.
lation block in Aspen Plus R
. It models component separation based
on user specified split fractions for any particular component and by
supplying flash specifications for inlet and outlet streams. The elec- Table 2
trolysis cell was modeled using a combined stoichiometric reactor Typical operating data for Abu Dhabi sulfur recovery units.
block (RSTOIC) and a “Sep” block to model the hydrogen separation. Acid gas feed properties
The RStoic simulation block models a reactor with specified reaction
chemistry. Also, reaction extent and conversion can also be specified. Temperature 36 °C
Pressure 1.8°bar
A FORTRAN calculator block was used to compute the electrical power Molar flow rate 1817°kmol/h
requirement of the electrolysis cell using Eq. (12) [29,30]. This power H2 S 51%
was supplied in the form of heat, stream HEAT-IN, to the electrolyzer. CO2 48.5%
CH4 0.10%
 
2 × 1000 × F × E × FLOWH2 C2–C8 0.02%
electrical power = (12) BTX 0.36%
3600

Please cite this article as: R.A. Adewale et al., A process simulation study of hydrogen and sulfur production from hydrogen sulfide using the
Fe–Cl hybrid process, Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2015.03.018
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Table 3 absorption is achieved. As explained above, increasing solution flow

Fe–Cl hybrid process model validation results.
rate improves H2 S treatment. However, this implies that more cost,
Parameter Pilot plant data Model Error (%) in terms of larger equipment and piping size, would be incurred.

Absorber outlet stream

FeCl3 (mol/dm3 ) 0.6 0.61 1.67 3.2. Effect of FeCl3 concentration on process performance
FeCl2 (mol/dm3 ) 1.1 1.09 1.82
HCl (mol/dm3 ) 4.5 4.49 0.22 As mentioned earlier, the extent of H2 S absorption by the
Produced sulfur (kg/day) 3 2.97 0.1 Fe3+ /Fe2+ /HCl solution depends on solution flow rate. To investi-
Electrolyzer outlet stream gate the effect of Fe3+ concentration on H2 S absorption, Fig. 4 was
FeCl3 (mol/dm3 ) 0.74 0.76 2.7
developed. This was achieved by plotting H2 S flow rate in the tail gas
FeCl2 (mol/dm3 ) 0.96 0.95 1.04
HCl (mol/dm3 ) 4.36 4.33 0.69
against varying solution flow rate at different FeCl3 concentration. As
Produced hydrogen (N m3 /day) 2.1 2.07 1.43 can be seen, the case where FeCl3 concentration is lowest (0.34 mol/l)
gives the poorest H2 S treatment compared to other cases of higher
FeCl3 concentration. And as we scan through the graph vertically from
H2 S absorption extent in the absorber is entirely thermodynami- the low FeCl3 concentration case to the higher ones, an improvement
cally determined while reaction extent in the electrolysis cell is de- in H2 S absorption is recorded. Experimental investigations on H2 S
pendent on the extent of H2 S absorption. The amount of hydrogen oxidation by Fe3+ carried out by different researchers [31–33] under
that can be produced from the electrolyzer is limited by the extent of different schemes underline the observed trend. The implication of
H2 S absorption in the absorber operation and the prevailing thermo- this observation is that, high Fe3+ concentration makes it possible to
dynamic conditions of the electrolysis cell. A transfer block was used operate at low solution flow rates without jeopardizing the quality
to specify a maximum possible reaction extent in the electrolyzer. of H2 S treatment. This introduces great benefits in the economics of
the process. Equipment size is reduced and pumping costs are min-
3. Results and discussion imized. However, the economic benefits accrued from the above are
not limitless. At too high concentrations of Fe3+ ions, insolubility may
The built model was validated using bench scale plant data avail- ensue, causing the ferric salt to precipitate out of solution.
able in literature [15] to ascertain that it is a satisfactory replica of
the process. The validation results for the Fe–Cl hybrid process are 3.3. Effect of FeCl2 concentration on process performance
presented in Table 3. It can be seen that the Aspen Plus R
model gave
a good prediction of the bench scale test results. Following the model To investigate the effect of having Fe2+ initially in the solution,
validation, the under listed effects were investigated. if any, the graph of H2 S absorption extent against solution flow rate
at different FeCl2 was plotted. Clearly, as implied by the overlapping
3.1. Effect of solution flow rate on H2 S absorption lines in Fig. 5, FeCl2 has little or no effect on the absorption–oxidation
reaction. For all concentration of Fe2+ considered, there is little or no
Fig. 3 portrays a scenario where the solution flow rate is varied to change on H2 S absorbed by the solution. This means that H2 S doesn’t
measure its effect on H2 S absorption extent. This level of absorption is get oxidized by FeCl2 as reported by Honna et al. [34] and Verhulst
determined by the flow rate of H2 S in the tail gas—the stream exiting [31]. However, Fig. 6 reveals that at zero FeCl2 , hydrogen production
the top of the absorber. The lower the H2 S content of the tail gas, in the downstream electrolyzer is reduced until a 1.39 × 105 kmol/h
the higher the absorption extent and vice versa. The corresponding solution flow rate is reached. Having FeCl2 initially in the solution
hydrogen/sulfur production is also shown. Based on stoichiometry, feed aids the downstream electrolyzer operation by ensuring that all
equal moles of hydrogen and sulfur are expected to be formed. As the hydrogen made available for production by the upstream H2 S
can be seen from the figure, increasing solution flow rate leads to absorption–oxidation are recovered. Based on collision theory, in-
reduced H2 S in the exiting gas stream. This implies that better H2 S creasing the concentration of initial reactants translates into more

Fig. 3. Effect of solution flow rate on H2 S absorption.

Please cite this article as: R.A. Adewale et al., A process simulation study of hydrogen and sulfur production from hydrogen sulfide using the
Fe–Cl hybrid process, Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2015.03.018
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Fig. 4. Effect of FeCl3 concentration on H2 S absorption.

Fig. 5. Effect of FeCl2 initial concentration on H2 S absorption.

frequent collision and therefore reaction between reacting species
leading to the formation of more products. At 1.39 × 105 kmol/h
solution flow rate, FeCl2 produced from the FeCl3 reduction reac-
tion is just sufficient for the production of the maximum possible
amount of hydrogen at the prevailing operating conditions. The extent
of H2 S absorption determines this maximum hydrogen production
limit.
3.4. Effect of HCl concentration on H2 S absorption
thereby preventing the products of hydrolysis from consuming the
ferric ions that would normally oxidize H2 S. However, in the presence
of excess HCl, FeCl3 hydrolysis is aided and this decreases the rate of
oxidation of H2 S by FeCl3 resulting into low H2 S absorption extent.
Generally, high HCl concentrations or low pH decreases the extent of
H2 S absorption in ferric ions [15, 31–33].
3.5. Effect of absorption temperature and pressure on
process performance

Fig. 7 delineates a plot of H2 S mole rate in tail gas against so-
lution flow rate at different HCl concentration. This allows for the
investigation of HCl effect on H2 S absorption. As can be seen from the
figure, for all HCl concentration considered, the amount of H2 S exit-
ing the absorber with the tail gas decreases with solution flow rate
to an extent and then starts to increase with increasing solution flow
rate.
According to Mellor [35], the presence of HCl in ferric solution acts
to stabilize the solution initially by hindering the hydrolysis of FeCl3
The solubility of H2 S decreases with increase in temperature
[32, 36]. The chemical oxidation of H2 S by Fe3+ ions occurs in the
liquid phase [17]. This means that better H2 S treatment will greatly
depend on its solubility in the liquid phase. Fig. 8 shows the effect of
varying absorption temperature on absorber performance. It is evi-
dent that at elevated temperatures, H2 S absorption extent is low. This
can be explained by the low H2 S solubility at high temperatures, en-
suring that there is little H2 S in the liquid phase for high absorption
rate by ferric ions. Pressure, on the other hand, has little effect on H2 S

Please cite this article as: R.A. Adewale et al., A process simulation study of hydrogen and sulfur production from hydrogen sulfide using the
Fe–Cl hybrid process, Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2015.03.018
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Fig. 6. Effect of initial FeCl2 concentration on hydrogen production.

Fig. 7. Effect of HCl concentration on H2 S absorption.

Fig. 8. Effect of absorber temperature on H2 S absorption.

Please cite this article as: R.A. Adewale et al., A process simulation study of hydrogen and sulfur production from hydrogen sulfide using the
Fe–Cl hybrid process, Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2015.03.018
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Fig. 9. Effect of pressure on H2 S absorption.

Table 4 six–tenths. Satisfactory results of within ±20% can be achieved us-

Summary of economic evaluation of the IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process.
ing this approach. Also, analysis of the cost of individual pieces of
Sulfur capacity (ton/day) 717 equipment has shown that the size factor’s exponent vary from 0.3
Capital cost (MM $) 411.0 to 1 with the average very near to 0.6 [38]. The rule of six–tenths is
Operating costs expressed as follows at any rate:
Utilities costs  0.6
Electricity usage (MW) 37.9 SB
Electricity cost(AED/kWh) 0.15 CB = CA (13)
SA
Total electricity cost (MM $/year) 13.6
Operating labor and maintenance costs where CB = the approximate cost ($) of equipment having size SB ;
Operating labor ($/year) 350,640 CA = the known cost ($) of equipment with corresponding size SA ;
Maintenance ($/year) 147,926 and SB /SA = is a dimensionless ratio known as the size factors.
Supervision ($/year) 306,810 The sulfur capacity of the plant of the present study is
Total operating cost (MM $/year) 14.4 7.17 × 105 kg/day with a corresponding hydrogen production of
Revenue
45,098 kg/day. Evaluation of the operating cost was based on the
Sulfur produced (ton/year) 261,836
Price of sulfur ($/ton) 153 amount of energy expended for the operation of the electrolyzer. Su-
Revenue from sulfur (MM $/year) 40 pervisory costs, operating labor costs and maintenance costs were
Hydrogen produced (ton/year) 16,461 obtained from calculations made by Aspen Plus R
[39].
Price of hydrogen ($/ton) 4400 Table 4 summarizes the economic evaluation described above. It
Revenue from hydrogen (MM $/year) 72.4
can be seen that the capital cost of U.S$ 411 million can be paid
Total revenue (MM $/year) 112.4
back or recovered in about 4 years from annual products (sulfur and
Profitability
Net profit (MM $/year) 98.0
hydrogen) savings of about U.S $112.5 million.
Payback period (years) 4.2 Paper reveals that 99.92% of hydrogen can be recovered using the
proposed process while achieving a higher sulfur recovery (99.92%)
than the existing Claus process (98.75%). This means a significant
increase in the revenues of the IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process.
absorption. Increase in pressure from 1 bar to as high as 20 bars only On the economics side, Claus sulfur recovery units do not make
increased absorption of H2 S by about 0.6%. This is evident from Fig. 9. a profit in most cases and they do not payback during the plant life
time. It is just an essential processing to allow the overall facility to
4. Economic estimate operate as the discharge of sulfur compounds to the atmosphere is
severely restricted by environmental regulations. This study reveals
The capital cost for a base plant, 1.5 kg/day sulfur, was obtained that IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process recovers its total capital investment in
from Lida et al. [22]. It was proportioned to the present day U.S. dol- around 4 years which makes it an attractive option. Table 5 briefly
lars using the cost price index calculator [37]. This value was then summarizes the potential revenues of IKC Fe–Cl process compared to
used to evaluate the cost of the plant in this study using the rule of that of Claus process.

Table 5
Comparison summary of Claus process and IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process.

Process/parameter Sulfur recovery (%) Hydrogen recovery (%) Payback period (years)

Claus process 98.75 0 Not paid back in plant life (30 years)
IKC Fe–Cl hybrid process 99.92 99.92 4.2

Please cite this article as: R.A. Adewale et al., A process simulation study of hydrogen and sulfur production from hydrogen sulfide using the
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5. Conclusions
A detailed process model was developed for the IKC Fe–Cl hy-
brid process which gave very satisfactory predictions when validated
using pilot-scale plant data. There is the tendency to achieve high
hydrogen sulfide absorption extents with this process. Based on this
study, absorption extents are strong functions of solution flow rates
and ferric ions concentration. The possibility of reducing equipment
size by carrying out absorption at high ferric ions concentration rather
than at high flow rates exists; however, this benefit may be limited by
ferric salt solubility problems that may ensue at high concentrations.
Effectively, high HCl concentrations do not favor the H2 S absorption–
oxidation step while ferrous ions seem to have no effect on hydrogen
sulfur absorption in the absorber but aid the downstream electrolysis
operations to improve hydrogen production. High absorption temper-
ature tends to lead to poor H2 S treatment because of low solubility of
the acid gas at high temperatures while pressure has little effect on
H2 S absorption. Economic evaluation of the process in the context of
Abu Dhabi gas plants shows its suitability to replace effectively the
commonly used Claus process.
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