Emissions control in an effective and economic fashion continues to drive research in our laboratories, particularly with respect to the sulphur plant. The modified Claus process has been the workhorse of the industry since the 1940s, but there seems to be little movement away from the conventional combustion stage and two to three catalyst unit system. Thermodynamic limitations for this approach then require tail gas treatment to capture the 2 - 4 % remaining sulphur. High efficiency tail gas methodologies are expensive because they must treat very dilute gas, and for those that enable >99.9% total recovery, the capital costs can be as much as 50% of the entire plant.
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