Patent ID: 6875413

Claim:
A substantially dry method for obtaining sulfur dioxide from elemental sulfur and pure oxygen which comprises: a) smelting elemental sulfur, b) admixing pure oxygen and cooled gas with the smelted elemental sulfur, c) combusting the smelted elemental sulfur with said pure oxygen and cooled gas, d) passing obtained combustion gas sequentially through an air interchanger, a purifier and a cooler, e) maintaining a negative pressure to move produced gas by suction throughout the preceding steps, f) recycling part of the cooled gas from step (d) to step (b), and transmitting the remainder of the cooled gas to a cooling plant, g) recycling non-condensable gas from the cooling plant to the cooled gas from step (d), and h) forming liquid SO 2 in the cooling plant and extracting the liquid SO 2 therefrom.