Reduction of Ice Consumption in Vinyl Sulphone Industry

Conventional Vinyl Sulphone manufacturing generates corrosive and acidic gases and liquid effluent, which is highly toxic with high BOD, COD and TDS values. Gaseous emissions can be effectively scrubbed. However, liquid effluent requires large quantity of lime to neutralise and it generates large quantity of gypsum containing organic impurities.The reduction or elimination of ice usage in dye industry is a key to reduce liquid effluent generated in the process. This paper describes the use of external cooling in the form of jacket or heat exchanger in the dumping step of the manufacturing process whereby the direct addition of ice in the dumping vessel is eliminated. Only the water needed for decomposing excess of chlorosulphonic acid needs to be added. The reduced amount of water in this step would result in less effluent generation. Moreover, the dilution of spent acid is reduced which can find some use at other places. Additional advantage is that the HCl recovery is easier from concentrated spent acid. This paper also shows that the yield of the desired product ASC ( Acetyl Sulphonyl Chloride) obtained experimentally is higher than that found in the conventional process.