Curious about Sulphur

[Psy]

Hi, I'm stupid, so when you answer, could you please answer in layman's terms? The chemical formulae mean practically nothing to me, and wikipedia and google already gave me a lot of those. x.x

So I'd like to ask about sulphur some, if I may? More specifically, its origins. I know it's an abundant, naturally present mineral, can be mined in its crystallized form, and recovered from industrial processes such as oil refinery. It can be used for anything from explosives to antibiotics, and exists in organic matter. But what I'm curious about is this, are the crystal sulphur, the recovered sulphur, and the sulphur present in foods like eggs and broccoli different kinds of sulphur? (I know it sounds like a dumb question, but wikipedia told me that sulphur can exist in various "allotropes" and I read the allotropy article but I still don't quite understand) Basic question is, are all the different forms of sulphur the same sulphur, and could they be made into the same elemental substance with some processing?

 

On a more practical level, can the sulphur present in something like eggs be extracted? Is the amount of sulphur present in eggs of a sufficient amount that it could viably be done as a science experiment? Please pardon my ignorance if these are absolutely ridiculous notions, I just don't know. But if it is possible...

Will rotten eggs possess higher levels or pureness of sulphur, or will the process of bacteria breaking the egg down allow for easier extraction of the element, if extraction is indeed a possibility? Would a process of letting eggs rot in water, then straining the water through cloth, and then distilling the sulphur be plausible? (I've read that water boils at a lower temperature than sulphur, so could it be possible to boil off the water without boiling off the sulphur? and would it be possible to do so without blowing anything up or burning anything down? For that matter how flammable IS it, and how hot does it burn?)

Or is there any way for a normal person without an industrial set up of the Claus process to refine or recover sulphur from other naturally occurring and easily obtainable products?

 

Also >.> can someone explain the Claus process to me in layman's terms? What I can understand from the wikipedia article is that the sour gas is mixed with oxygen and burnt at a certain temperature (>850C), which causes non sulphuric gasses to burn off and a purer form of sulphur gas to head to the condenser where it's cooled (to between 130C and 150C) and some of the sulphur becomes liquid and drops down, and then the catalytic stage I don't understand quite, the remaining gas get shunted from the condenser into a chamber where what happens? is another gas introduced, or are the hydrolyzing beds filled with another state of chemical (which wikipedia says is activated aluminum (III) or titanium (IV) oxide, is that a solid/powder?) which reacts to the gas in the air automatically? Or is something done to the oxides so that they mix with the sulphuric gas? Then does it get burnt again before returning to the condenser step? The diagram would indicate not but doesn't catalyzing the sulphuric gas taint it? Or what, specifically, is the point and purpose of the catalyst? What does it do for the gas?

 

Thank you for any answers.

 

 

(PS. not homework, just curiosity)

[hypervalent_iodine]

All I can really comment on is that the sulphur you find in foods and the sulphur that is mined, etc. consist of different sulphur-containing compounds. In other words, the sulphur atom is the same throughout, but the molecule that they are a part of may be different. Allotropes simply refer to the way by which atoms connect to one another in a crystal structure. For instance, diamond and graphite are both made up of carbon, but the carbon atoms are joined to each other differently, resulting in different physical and chemical properties. Isotopes are where you have different 'types' of a particular atom (i.e. same number of protons in the nucleus, but different number of neutrons). There are only four isotopes of sulphur that you see in any real abundance, the rest are quite radioactive (with the exception of one of them, whose half life is 87 days). The only thing that would be different between the sulphurs in each of the various molecules is perhaps the oxidation state, which describes the hypothetical charge of an atom if all of the bonds to said atom were ionic (loosely, that means that the electrons within the bond are localised solely on one of the atoms and not the other [electrons are negatively charged]).

 

I am not too familiar with the rest of it, sorry.

 

Hope that helps.

[Where is my navel?]

"are all the different forms of sulphur the same sulphur, and could they be made into the same elemental substance with some processing?"

 

They are the same sulphur in the sense that they are all made of sulphur atoms, the difference is the number of sulphur atoms (eg. comparing the

disulphur to the trisulphur). The form you are most likely to get though, will be the most stable form of sulfur. Its known as alpha sulfur/rhombic sulfur.

 

In theory, yes, you should be able to turn them all into a particular allotrope, but so in theory you can make diamonds out of pencils, as Hypervalent_iodine suggested. I know

you can make beta sulphur from alpha when its in the 8 ring allotrope, and from a standard sulphur solution with carbon disulphide you can get alpha sulphur.

 

"On a more practical level, can the sulphur present in something like eggs be extracted?"

 

Mmmm from eggs? You could try liquifying eggs and running that through a manganese greensand filter. This will oxidise the sulphur ,making it solid. Those filters are

a tad pricey, so I wonder if there is a D.I.Y alternative.

Edited February 3, 2011 by Where is my navel?

[Horza2002]

The smell of rotten eggs is actually hydrogen sulphide (H2S - a molecule with sulphur bonded to two hydrogen atoms)

[John Cuthber]

You could extract the sulphur from eggs, but it would be a very expensive way to do it. There isn't much sulphur in an egg.

 

The Claus process is complicated in practice, but in principle its simple enough.

The idea is to recover sulphur from gas mixtures containing hydrogen sulphide.

A lot of natural gas contains some hydrogen sulphide when it comes out of the gas well. This is a problem because hydrogen sulphide is corrosive, and when it burns it forms sulphur dioxide which contributes to acid rain.

 

The hydrogen sulphide is composed of atoms of sulphur, each of which is attached to two atoms of hydrogen.

The Claus process, effectively burns off the two hydrogen atoms and leaves the sulphur behind.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to do that directly because the sulphur will also burn.

So they burn part of the hydrogen sulphide to get sulphur dioxide and water.

Then they react the sulphur dioxide with the remaining hydrogen sulphide. The oxygen in the sulphur dioxide combines with the hydrogen from the hydrogen sulphide to make water. The sulphur gets left behind and is extracted.

 

The catalyst makes this reaction happen more readily.