The present invention, in general, relates to portable/transportable apparatuses, methods, and systems for generating and delivering sulfur trioxide on-site or near an item to be treated. The present invention also relates to portable/transportable apparatuses, methods, and systems for removing hydrocarbon contaminants including waxes, paraffins, resins, and ashpaltenes from surfaces and treating the surfaces to reduce hydrocarbon contaminant build-up on the surfaces.

The invention is a method and a sulfuric acid plant design for reduction of start-up SO.sub.2, SO.sub.3 and H.sub.2SO.sub.4 emissions in sulfuric acid production, in which SO2 is converted to SO.sub.3 in n successive catalyst beds, where n is an integer >1. The final catalytic beds are used as absorbents for SO.sub.2 to SO3 during the start-up procedure, and one or more of the m beds downstream the first bed are purged, either separately or simultaneously, with hot gas, where m is an integer >1 and m<n, during the previous shut-down. Also, one separate purge with hot gas is used on the final bed.

Commercial production of sulfuric acid is almost entirely accomplished nowadays using the contact process. And the trend is to increase conversion efficiency and reduce emissions of unconverted sulfur dioxide. By using a special combination of contact catalyst beds, a single contact single absorption (SCSA) system can be engineered to achieve the conversion and emission capabilities of conventional double contact double absorption systems. Thus, the complexity and cost of incorporating a second absorption tower and associated heat exchanger in the system can be omitted. In the SCSA system, the initial catalyst bed or beds comprise vanadium oxide catalyst and the last catalyst bed or beds comprise platinum catalyst operating at a much lower temperature than the initial beds.

A catalytic reactor may have at least one reactor module and a shell that extends about a reactor center axis. The reactor module may include a gas distribution chamber, a gas collection chamber, and a catalyst. The gas distribution chamber may be connected to a shell-side gas feed. The gas collection chamber may be connected to a shell-side gas discharge. A catalyst bed between the distribution and collection chambers may extend transversely to the reactor center axis. The gas distribution and collection chambers are bounded by the catalyst bed and reactor walls. The gas feed either opens into the gas distribution chamber on the shell side or is connected to a pipe length that extends towards the reactor center axis and opens into the gas distribution chamber in the region of the reactor center axis. A height parallel to the reactor center axis of the gas distribution chamber reduces towards the reactor center axis starting from a mouth of the gas feed in the case of a shell-side connection.

A process for the catalytic conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide to increase sulfuric acid regeneration from a spent sulfuric acid stream or other sulfur-containing stream includes replacing at least a portion of the atmospheric air typically used to oxidize sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide with oxygen by introducing oxygen-enriched air and/or pure oxygen feed streams into the process. A related apparatus for use in the process is also provided for catalytic conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide.

The present invention relates to a method for the catalytic removal of sulfur dioxide from waste gases in two reactors, wherein the first reactor is charged with an activated carbon catalyst. The method comprises: a. provision of a waste gas with a water content of less than 1 g H.sub.2O/Nm.sup.3 and an SO.sub.2 content of at least 5 ppm, b. introduction of the waste gases into a first reactor, c. catalytic conversion of the SO.sub.2 into gaseous SO.sub.3 in the first reactor by the activated carbon catalyst, wherein catalytic conversion on the activated carbon catalyst proceeds at a temperature of below 100 C., d. introduction of the prepurified waste gases from the first reactor into a second reactor, e. conversion of the SO.sub.3 with water into H.sub.2SO.sub.4 in the second reactor.

Commercial production of sulfuric acid is almost entirely accomplished nowadays using the contact process. And the trend is to increase conversion efficiency and reduce emissions of unconverted sulfur dioxide. By using a special combination of contact catalyst beds, a single contact single absorption (SCSA) system can be engineered to achieve the conversion and emission capabilities of conventional double contact double absorption systems. Thus, the complexity and cost of incorporating a second absorption tower and associated heat exchanger in the system can be omitted. In the SCSA system, the initial catalyst bed or beds comprise vanadium oxide catalyst and the last catalyst bed or beds comprise platinum catalyst operating at a much lower temperature than the initial beds.

Commercial production of sulfuric acid is almost entirely accomplished nowadays using the contact process. And the trend is to increase conversion efficiency and reduce emissions of unconverted sulfur dioxide. By using a special combination of contact catalyst beds, a single contact single absorption (SCSA) system can be engineered to achieve the conversion and emission capabilities of conventional double contact double absorption systems. Thus, the complexity and cost of incorporating a second absorption tower and associated heat exchanger in the system can be omitted. In the SCSA system, the initial catalyst bed or beds comprise vanadium oxide catalyst and the last catalyst bed or beds comprise platinum catalyst operating at a much lower temperature than the initial beds.

The present invention relates to improving a performance of a production plant, in particular, in chemical industry. To this end, a method for determining a reactor performance for a catalytic reactor or reactor system is provided, the method comprising the steps of:providing reactor data indicative of a property of the catalytic reactor or the reactor system,providing catalyst configuration data indicative of a property of at least one catalyst present in the catalytic realtor or reactor system,providing a reactor model associated with the least one catalyst, the reactor model being configured for determining a catalytic reaction within the catalytic reactor or reactor system based on the reactor data and the catalyst configuration data,determining the reactor performance using the reactor data, the catalyst configuration data and the reactor model, andproviding the determined reactor performance for the provided catalyst configuration.