Sulfuric Acid Formula
and Production
Sulfuric Acid Formula and Production
The Sulfuric acid formula is H2SO4 and its structure is shown to the right. This diagram follows vsepr rules and does not show lone pairs. It is an essential component to many industries as well as being an essential ingredient in the operation of deep cycle solar backup batteries. It is such an important chemical that more of it is produced than any other single substance. The economic wealth of a country can be estimated by the amount of sulfuric acid it produces.Uses of Sulfuric Acid Sulfuric acid is employed in a variety of industries. In iron and steel production is is used to clean the surface of the metal before it is coated with another substance. It is involved in making synthetic dyes as well as other types of acid such as Hydrochloric and Nitric acids. It also features in the making of drugs, fertilizers and explosives, as well as being important for removing impurities from petroleum in the oil refining business. Sulfuric acid is also a powerful dehydrating agent. The video below whows the effect of concentrated sulfuric acid on sugar. The poor sound is due to the fume cupboard fan being on while this experiment was run. The water is being sucked out of the sugar leaving only carbon behind. The gas coming off the top of the carbon pillar is water steam. Production of Sulfuric Acid The Contact Process was developed over 100 years ago and is still the primary means of large scale production of Sulfuric acid. There are four steps to the process which starts with elemental Sulfur. STEP 1: The Burner. Pure Sulfur is burned in air to give Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), which is familiar to us as rotten egg gas. This reaction happens at about 1000 degrees celsius. The air used for the burning must be dust free as the presence of dust in the second part of the process will cause damage to the catalyst.
STEP 2: The Converter. The Sulfur Dioxide is passed into a tower made of stacked vertical beds of 2 catalyst material, usually Vanadium Oxide but sometimes Platinum. Here the Sulfur Dioxide reacts with oxygen once again to give Sulfur Trioxide. The purpose of the catalyst is to reduce the temperature needed for the reaction to occur. This is used because the reaction of SO2 with Oxygen gas (O2) is more productive at the lower temperature of 300 degrees celsius.
Sulfur Trioxide cannot be immediately converted into Sulfuric acid by absorbing water, as happens in acid rain. If allowed to absorb water the SO3 becomes a fine mist that is very difficult to collect.STEP 3: Absorption of Sulfur Trioxide. In order to produce Sulfuric acid in liquid form the Sulfur Trioxide gas from the converter is bubbled through very high purity liquid H2SO4. This is a very efficient process that results in virtually complete absorption of the SO3 gas. The resulting liquid chemical is called oleum and has the formula H2S2O7.
STEP 4: Hydration of the Oleum. Finally the Oleum is converted into highly concentrated H2SO4 by the addition of dilute H2SO4 and water. This reaction gives off a lot of heat and so the resulting acid needs to be cooled before it is sent to storage.
The first two reactions shown above are left unbalanced for simplicity.
Sulfuric Acid Formula and Production
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