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Simultaneous measurements of SO2 and SO3 in the heterogeneous conversions of SO2 using QCL absorption spectroscopy

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Abstract

An optical sensor was developed for simultaneous detection of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and sulfur trioxide (SO3) at elevated temperatures using a quantum cascade laser (QCL) spectrometer. The SO2/SO3 concentrations and the SO2 conversions were measured during the heterogeneous catalytic reaction with S-101 intermediate-temperature vanadium catalysts at pressures of 3–20 kPa and temperatures of 550–1000 K. The SO2 spectra in the ν3 band and the SO3 spectra in the ν3 + ν4 band near 7.16 µm at elevated temperatures were well resolved in the strongly overlapping spectra by measuring the SO2 and SO3 high-temperature individual absorption spectra that were extended from room-temperature spectra in the HITRAN database. A SO2/SO3 separation unit was designed to extract and measure the remaining SO2 after conversion at room temperature, with the results comparing well with the optically measured concentrations in the high-temperature catalytic reactions. The system was then used to investigate the pressure and temperature dependencies of the heterogeneous conversions of SO2. SO3 was first detected at temperatures higher than 590 K with the SO2 conversion increasing to 92% at 797 K and then decreasing to less than 3% at 1014 K. The measured conversions show a logarithmic growth with increasing pressures at each temperature. The difference between the measured heterogeneous conversion and the theoretical conversion calculated using a thermodynamic model was also analyzed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFB2006002), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11972213, 51906120) and the Tsinghua University-China Huaneng Group Co. Ltd. Joint Institute for Base Energy (HNKJ20-H50).

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Power Systems, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Jidong Li, Yanjun Ding, Zheng Li & Zhimin Peng

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Li, J., Ding, Y., Li, Z. et al. Simultaneous measurements of SO2 and SO3 in the heterogeneous conversions of SO2 using QCL absorption spectroscopy. Appl. Phys. B 128, 61 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-022-07776-0

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