Hydrogen sulfide has the distinctive unpleasant odor associated with rotten eggs, and it is poisonous. It often must be removed from crude natural gas and is therefore a product of refining natural gas. In such instances, the Claus process provides a means of converting H₂S to elemental sulfur.

Consider a feed stream to a Claus process that consists of 10.0 mole% H₂S and 90.0% CO₂. Onethird of the stream is sent to a furnace where the H₂S is burned completely with a stoichiometric amount of air fed at 1 atm and 25°C. The combustion reaction is

The product gases from this reaction are then mixed with the remaining two-thirds of the feed stream and sent to a reactor in which the following reaction goes to completion.

The gases leave the reactor at 10.0m³/min, 320°C, and 205 kPa absolute. Assuming ideal-gas behavior, determine the feed rate of air in kmol/min. Provide a single balanced chemical equation reflecting the overall process stoichiometry. How much sulfur is produced in kg/min?

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H2S+02 → SO2 +H2O 3S+ 2H2O 2H2S + SO2