Degassing of liquid sulphur produced by the Claus process is important because it reduces the hazard due to H2S release from the liquid in storage and transportation systems. New research in our laboratories using solid catalysts based on alumina or silica has shown that the solid acts first to decompose H2S_x and the sparge gas, then drives the released gas from the liquid, so displacing the H2S_xequilibrium (Fig. 1). This process is usually referred to as the "Amoco" degassing process, which seems only to have been implemented using air as the sparge gas. To our knowledge, Amoco did not discuss the most important facet of degassing with alumina, namely, the decomposition of H2S_x by basic sites on the catalyst surface.
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