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Can someone advise the method of sulphur recovery in a Performance test of sulphur recovery unit (SRU) in the sense whether % sulphur recovery can be measured by
Sulphur in feed X 100/product sulphur received in sulphur storage? There are some people who believe that sulphur recovery can be estimated by measuring the sulphur in feed (A) and sulphur species in the incinerator stack (B) and simple subtraction of (A)-(B). However I strongly believe that the sulphur balance of the whole plant should be done which includes quantity of sulphur received in storage pit. Please advise. I would be grateful if somebody advises various methods with pros and cons of each and finally the best method practiced in the industry.
 
Answers
30/06/2016 A: Morgan Rodwell, Fluor Canada Limited, morgan.rodwell@fluor.com
Various juridisctions may have specific regulations on how sulfur recovery or emissions are calculated. However, from a purely numerical perspective, measuring the acid gas into the SRU and the sulfur produced should provide the best result because the errors in measurement should be smaller as a fraction of the value. Measuring stack emissions has much higher error due to both flow measurement and the low concentration of SO2/SO3 in said stack gas.
The only challenge is using the pit to measure. I worked in a plant that had an old pit, and it turned out the concrete walls of the pit had collapsed and the pit was now an unknown shape/size. Therefore, I would recommend using either a tank or a mass flow meter to measure production rate.