Sulfur vulcanization a substantial fraction of natural and synthetic rubber. Reclaimed rubber has altered properties and is unsuitable for use in many products, including tires. Tires and other vulcanized products are potentially amenable to devulcanization, but this technology has not produced material that can supplant unvulcanized materials. The main problem is that the carbon-sulfur linkages are not readily broken, without the input of costly reagents and heat. Thus, more than half of scrap rubber is simply burned for fuel. Although polymeric sulfur is unstable and decomposes back to its monomer, it is possible to create stable polymers consisting mostly of sulfur via
Claus process typically 240 °C for the second stage and 200 °C for the third stage (bottom bed temperatures). In the sulfur condenser, the process gas coming from the catalytic reactor is cooled to between 150 and 130 °C. The condensation heat is used to generate steam at the shell side of the condenser. Before storage, liquid sulfur streams from the process gas cooler, the sulfur condensers and from the final sulfur separator are routed to the degassing unit, where the gases (primarily HS) dissolved in the sulfur are removed. The tail gas from the Claus process still containing combustible components and