(60c) Effect of Sulfur Containing Compounds on Flame Characteristic and Contaminants Formation

A family of major contaminants in raw natural gas and sour gas emerging from processing units in petrochemical plants is sulfur containing compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide and mercaptan. Incomplete combustion of those compounds not only causes smelly air emission, which is easily to arise public complaints, but also causes significant environmental and health issues if not controlled properly. Though they are combustible gases, the combustion characteristic of sulfur containing compounds is totally different from hydrocarbon, which makes the flare operation of industrial sour gas flare experience based.

During the past, some hydrogen sulfide combustion mechanisms were proposed. However, these mechanisms are not complete since the influence of some specific free radicals and intermediates were not taken into consideration, especially for open flame under fuel-lean, non-premixed operating condition. In this research we developed a comprehensive mechanism for cleaner and highly efficient combustion of hydrocarbon streams with sulfur containing compounds. The impact of S species on combustion characteristics, such ignition delay and burning velocity was studied. The interaction between S/N/C/OH/H species in radical level was investigated as well. Those interactions will be used for predicting the influence of sulfur compounds on combustion condition and pollution prevention.