The pyrolysis of hydrogen sulfide has been studied at residence times between 0.4 and 1.6 s and in the temperature range of 800−1100 °C. A continuous perfectly mixed quartz reactor was used to acquire kinetic data on the thermal dissociation of hydrogen sulfide and elemental sulfur mixtures diluted in argon (95 vol %). The kinetic auto-acceleration effect of sulfur is demonstrated. A detailed radical mechanism is written to account for the experimental results, in particular for the auto-acceleration effect, and validated against experimental results. This pyrolysis kinetic scheme is the first step and core of a complete detailed mechanism capable of modeling the various oxidation reactions encountered in an industrial Claus furnace.

Platinum gauzes have been studied for the partial oxidation of methane in a high-temperature TAP-2 reactor between 800 and 1100 • C. Two different oxidation procedures were used and the oxygen uptake has been measured. Alternating pulse experiments with oxygen and methane with various pulse intervals have revealed mechanistic information about the platinum catalyzed partial oxidation. It has been shown that carbon monoxide and hydrogen can be produced directly from methane and solid oxidized platinum. In the absence of gas phase oxygen, the maximum selectivities to carbon monoxide and hydrogen were 97 and 96%, respectively, at a methane conversion of 25%. At low surface oxygen concentrations, oxygen that is incorporated in the platinum bulk diffuses back to the surface to react with surface carbon to carbon monoxide. In that case the surface lifetimes of carbon monoxide and hydrogen are much shorter than the oxygen diffusion time and no consecutive oxidation reactions occur. The results of this study show that production of synthesis gas with high yields is possible by a direct route.

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Plasma sputter deposition is introduced in the field of catalyst preparation. It is shown that growth kinetics and morphologies are determined by ion to neutral flux ratio and kinetic energies of sputtered atoms. Catalytic activity of such catalysts compares very well with classical catalysts.