Melting of sulfur
After the post about the properties of sulfur, initially I wanted to skip the topic of logistics of sulfur, since handling liquid sulfur in continuous operation usually causes few problems. The logistics (loading, transport, unloading) of liquid sulfur has become established in recent years, since it is very cost-effective compared to handling solid sulfur, both in terms of personnel costs and the use of additives (filter aids) and the associated issue with residues and maintenance costs. After Jan Hermans Sulphurnet's comment, I noticed that there is one point worth to be regarded more in detail.
During longer shutdowns or in non-continuous operations, sulfur solidifies. When restarting, the sulfur has to be melted again. This takes a certain span of time, which depends on the size of the pipes or objects and the temperature of the trace heating. Because we can't look inside pumps, for example, you can only measure temperatures. Starting up too early with unmelted sulphur may cause damage to equipment, or at least it will only cause delays.Therefore, the question of how long it takes to melt solid sulphur is interesting. With some simplifications, we get the equation:
Melting is limited by the heat transfer through the already melted sulfur and the heat input into the system.
In the small gif clip we see yellow solid? sulfur and red molten sulfur.
?The diameter of the solid sulfur core calculated under depending on the time you can see in Diag.1.
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The melting time for different starting diameters of pipes is shown
in diag. 2.
The melting time increases as a square of the diameter of the pipe.
For this reason, solid sulfur is available in prills or flakes with a fairly small diameter, as the solidification of liquid sulfur follows analogous laws. Too small diameter are also unwanted due to forming of dust and the ease of ignition.