Abstract:
Potassium sulfate is a kind of manure that commonly used. The making of
potassium sulfate has been learned. The method is by oxidizing sulfur suspension in
potassium carbonate solution. The problems in that process are feeding and process
condition. Next, the simple process is made, by reacting sulfur with potassium carbonate
solution before oxidize reaction product (solution) into potassium sulfate. The objective of
this research was to learn the model and kinetics reaction of sulfur with potassium
carbonate. From this research we get reaction model and kinetics data that we can use for
reactor design and (reaction) process.
This research is made in batch reactor which we used one-neck flask with heater
and stirrer. Pouring 500 ml potassium carbonate into the reactor and being heating until
several temperature. Then, 100 gram of sulfur is fed into the reactor and the reaction is
run until several time. When the reaction is finish, the mixed solution is filtered and the
filtrate is being analyze to obtained S that bind in K2S2O3 and K2S2, then the total
conversion is count.
From this research we can get some conclusions, that is reaction of sulfur with
potassium carbonate is being controlled by chemical reaction regime. This statement is
prove with time that sulfur needs for perfect reaction in chemical reaction regime is longer
than in diffusion regime. The biggest kinetics constant was in 100 oC temperature, 1.15 N
potassium carbonate concentration that is 7.83776 x 10-6 dm/menit. The fastest diffusivity
was in 100 oC temperature, 2.11 N potassium carbonate that is 8.55935 x 10-10 dm2/menit.
