Process and apparatus for the rapid cooling of a hydrogen and elemental sulfur containing hot gas mixture

摘要

A process cools combustion gases emerging from a furnace e.g. a Claus apparatus in which a gas incorporating H2S is partially incinerated at a between 1000 and 1800 degrees C, with the result that the emerging gases contain SO2, H2S, H2, H2O and elementary sulphur. The hot gases emerging from the incinerator are immediately led through an indirect heat exchanger with a cooling tower through which a cooling fluid passes and removes heat energy. The novelty is that the first section of the heat exchanger incorporates numerous small pipes for the hot gas, whose diameter d is between 5 and 50 mm. The hot gases in these pipes cool to no more than 800 degrees C within a period of 0.05 s. The cooled gases then emerge from small pipes of diameter d into a second section of the heat exchanger where the pipe diameter is 2d or more. If air is used as the cooling medium, the hot gases are cooled to a maximum of 750 degrees C in the first-section small diameter pipes.