After three years of research, we have developed drum sulphur granulation process and manufactured RDG drum sulphur granulator. Our machine successfully finished the pilot running at Lianyungang Yashi Sulphur Company in May, 2009. This technique and equipment fill the blank of this field in China, and we have got the national patent. This not only offers a new choice for sulphur granulation, but also supplies an efficient, economical and reasonable technical solution for large scale production.

The working principle is as follows. There are many lifting plates installed on the inner wall of rotary drum. With the rotation of drum, sulphur powders or small sulphur particles inside the drum are continuously lifted, and forms a material curtain at one side of drum. On the other side, liquid sulphur is sprayed onto the curtain from spray nozzles, and mixed with sulphur particles to form spherical particles. The particles fall down to the bottom of drum, and are lifted again by the lifting plate, and then the liquid sulphur is sprayed on the particles one more time. In this way, the particles are gradually enlarged to form a ball. When a 2-6mm ball is generated, it is transferred to the belt conveyor from one end of drum, then packaged. At the same time of spraying liquid sulphur, high pressure atomized water is also sprayed. The latent heat of vaporization of water is used to rapidly cool and solidify the injected liquid sulphur in case it adheres to each other. Meanwhile, the water vapor is exhausted from the drum by draught fan, and it is released into air after dedusting. During the entire working process, the temperature of materials inside is detected, and the flow rate of liquid sulphur or cooling water is real-time controlled by the computer. Thus, the materials can be cooled very fast, and the water content won't be too high to exceed the specification.

Now, most of sulphur granulation equipment in China is rotary steel belt type. It has some disadvantages that lead to the high production cost per ton, no matter it is Chinese product or foreign product. The disadvantages include low production capacity, many accessory machines, high maintenance cost, complex and large public works, high investment of equipment and foundation engineering, etc. However, our drum sulphur granulator features little investment, large production capacity as well as few matching machines, and it can be placed outdoors. Thus, the construction and installation costs are greatly reduced.

Here is a comparison between steel belt granulator and drum sulphur granulator.

From the table above, we can draw a conclusion that the drum sulphur granulator is more suitable for large scale sulphur granulation when compared with rotary steel belt granulator. In some countries with big production of sulphur, especially in the Middle East, the drum sulphur granulator occupies 70% of the market, while the steel belt type only takes up 30%.

Thus, drum sulphur granulator has significant advantages, and it is the ideal product for sulphur granulation process. Now, only Puguang gas field of Sinopec uses this kind of machine in China, and it is imported.

SUNUP Granulation Equipment successfully developed RDG-2000 drum sulphur granulator with production capacity of 15T/h, and the maximum production capacity can reach up to 20T/h. It has double speed regulation mechanisms which are drum speed control and liquid sulphur flow control. This machine adopts modular design, and the entire system contains drum granulator, wet dust removing system as well as control room which is equipped with control system and spraying system. Our product has many advantages, such as stable working, low energy consumption, high production capacity, short production flow, convenient installation, little investment, etc.