Sulfuric acid is a mineral acid with molecular formula H2SO4. It is a colorless odorless syrupy liquid that is soluble in water, in a reaction that is highly exothermic.
Its corrosiveness can be mainly ascribed to its strong acidic nature. It is also hygroscopic, readily absorbing water vapour from the air.Sulfuric acid at even moderate concentrations is very dangerous upon contact with skin.
Sulfuric acid is a very important commodity chemical, and indeed, a nation’s sulfuric acid production is a good indicator of its industrial strength.It is widely produced with different methods, such as contact process, wet sulfuric acid process, lead chamber process and some other methods.
Sulfuric acid is a very important commodity chemical, and indeed, a nation’s sulfuric acid production is a good indicator of its industrial strength.World production in 2004 was about 180 million tonnes, with the following geographic distribution: Asia 35%, North America (including Mexico) 24%, Africa 11%, Western Europe 10%, Eastern Europe and Russia 10%, Australia and Oceania 7%, South America 7%. Most of this amount (≈60%) is consumed for fertilizers, particularly superphosphates, ammonium phosphate and ammonium sulfates. About 20% is used in chemical industry for production of detergents, synthetic resins, dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals, petroleum catalysts, insecticides and antifreeze, as well as in various processes such as oil well acidicizing, aluminium reduction, paper sizing, water treatment. About 6% of uses are related to pigments and include paints, enamels, printing inks, coated fabrics and paper, and the rest is dispersed into a multitude of applications such as production of explosives, cellophane, acetate and viscose textiles, lubricants, non-ferrous metals and batteries.
The most common use of Sulfuric Acid is for fertilizer manufacture. It is also a central substance in the chemical industry. Principal uses include fertilizer manufacturing (and other mineral processing), oil refining, wastewater processing, and chemical synthesis. It has a wide range of end applications including in domestic acidic drain cleaners, as an electrolyte in lead-acid batteries and in various cleaning agents.
In the first step, sulfur is burned to produce sulfur dioxide.
This is then oxidized to sulfur trioxide using oxygen in the presence of a vanadium(V) oxide catalyst. This reaction is reversible and the formation of the sulfur trioxide is exothermic.
The sulfur trioxide is absorbed into 97–98% H2SO4 to form oleum (H2S2O7), also known as fuming sulfuric acid. The oleum is then diluted with water to form concentrated sulfuric acid.
Note that directly dissolving SO3 in water is not practical due to the highly exothermic nature of the reaction between sulfur trioxide and water. The reaction forms a corrosive aerosol that is very difficult to separate, instead of a liquid.
Mihanzaj Factory produce Sulfuric Acid by 120T p/d capacity.