Sulphur
Sulphur Facts
The properties, history and market realities that shape how sulphur is produced, traded and priced.
Sulphur is one of the oldest materials in human use and one of the strangest commodities in modern trade. A short collection of the facts that matter to anyone buying or selling it.
Historical notes
- Known as brimstone — literally burning stone — and used since antiquity
- One of the three components of black powder, alongside charcoal and saltpetre
- Burned as a fumigant and disinfectant in Greek and Roman practice
- Identified as a chemical element by Lavoisier in 1777
- Charles Goodyear's 1839 discovery of vulcanisation made rubber a practical material
- The Frasch process, patented in 1894, made large-scale extraction economic
Chemical and physical facts
- The tenth most abundant element in the universe
- Exists in more allotropic forms than almost any other element — over thirty are known
- The stable form at room temperature is the S₈ ring, a crown-shaped eight-atom molecule
- Essential to life: it appears in the amino acids cysteine and methionine
- Burns with a distinctive blue flame to produce sulphur dioxide
- Pure sulphur is odourless — the notorious smell belongs to hydrogen sulphide
Market facts
- Global production runs to roughly 80 million tonnes a year
- Over 80% is recovered involuntarily from oil and gas processing
- Output rises as refiners process more sour crude, regardless of sulphur demand
- About 90% of it ends up as sulphuric acid
- Phosphate fertilizer is the single largest downstream consumer
- The Middle East, North America and Central Asia are the principal exporting regions
- Prices are unusually volatile, because supply is inelastic to its own demand
Handling facts
- Dust is combustible and can form an explosive atmosphere in confined spaces
- Molten sulphur is shipped and stored at 130 to 150 °C in heated systems
- Damp sulphur becomes acidic and will corrode carbon steel
- Solid sulphur stockpiles are stable outdoors and are stored in the open worldwide
- Static discharge is a recognised ignition risk when handling fine dust
