Plasmas for destruction of H2S and mercaptans

Plasmas are reviewed as activation media for an oxidation of H2S or CH3SH diluted in air, CO2 or steam in order to convert them into less malodorous SO2. The product can be then used as a reagent in a Claus-like process in presence of water to convert twice as much of initial pollutants into elemental sulfur. A particular attention is devoted to the gliding electrical discharges (GlidArc). These powerful discharges produce non-thermal plasma, which activates oxidation reactions. Most of experiments were performed using one and four-stage GlidArc-I reactors. Air-diluted sulfides at initial concentrations up to 1% (H2S) or 0.1% (CH3SH) were processed at up to 70 m(3)(n)/h flow rate and 5 kW power scale. The tests were done at 1 atm. Up to 100% clean-up was obtained at a quite low energy cost depending on initial pollutant concentration: roughly 1000 kWh per 1 kg of removed sulfur at 100 ppm of H2S, but only 10 kWh/kg for 1% initial H2S in air. Almost the same energies were needed in the case of CH3SH-air mixtures. Using a very simple washing column in which water saturates with the produced SO2 and so captures unprocessed H2S we cut these process energy by three, avoiding the SO2 emission and obtaining non-toxic sulfur. New development based on GlidArc-II brush-like electric discharges is also presented. Preliminary tests are very promising as the energy expense is already cut down by a factor of two with respect to the GlidArc-I devices. Up to industrial scale tests can be therefore performed.