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Material World
Element · S

Sulfur

The yellow element of volcanoes, and the feedstock for the chemical the world produces more of than any other.

Sulfur occurs natively around volcanic vents in unmistakable yellow crusts, and was known and used long before it was understood. Almost all of it is now recovered as a by-product of removing sulfur compounds from petroleum and natural gas — which means sulfur supply is tied to fossil fuel processing rather than to demand for sulfur.

Most of it becomes sulfuric acid, produced in greater tonnage than any other manufactured chemical. Sulfuric acid consumption has been used as a proxy for industrial output for over a century.

History

Sulfur is one of the three components of gunpowder, alongside charcoal and saltpetre, and its trade was strategically significant for centuries before its industrial chemistry mattered at all.

Uses

Sulfur's overwhelming use is to make sulfuric acid, which is in turn used to make almost everything else — fertiliser above all, but also detergents, dyes, and the leaching solutions that extract copper and uranium from low-grade ore. Sulfuric acid production is a reasonable proxy for a country's industrial activity.

Elemental sulfur also vulcanises rubber, cross-linking the polymer chains so a tyre holds its shape, and serves as a fungicide in agriculture.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

is used as

  • Fertiliser — application · as sulfuric acid, used to convert phosphate rock into soluble fertiliser

is extracted from

  • Pyrite — mineral · historically the principal source of sulfur for sulfuric acid Wikidata

is found in

  • Gypsum — mineral Wikidata
  • Sulfuric acid — compound
  • Coal — rock · as pyrite and organic sulfur, and the reason coal burning acidified rainfall across industrial Europe and North America
  • Wool — material · in the cross-links between keratin chains, which is what gives burning wool its smell and what holds the fibre's permanent crimp
  • Seawater — material · as sulfate, the third most abundant ion
  • Crude oil — material · a fraction of a per cent to several per cent, and the difference between sweet and sour crude — it poisons catalysts and must be removed before the chemistry downstream
  • Gypsum plaster — material · as sulfate, and the reason gypsum in an anaerobic landfill produces hydrogen sulfide
  • Acanthite — mineral Wikidata
  • Arsenopyrite — mineral Wikidata
  • Baryte — mineral Wikidata
  • Bismuthinite — mineral Wikidata
  • Chalcopyrite — mineral Wikidata
  • Cinnabar — mineral Wikidata
  • Cobaltite — mineral Wikidata
  • Galena — mineral Wikidata
  • Molybdenite — mineral Wikidata
  • Pentlandite — mineral Wikidata
  • Pyrite — mineral Wikidata
  • Sphalerite — mineral Wikidata
  • Stibnite — mineral Wikidata

is a source for

  • Sulfuric acid — compound · burned to sulfur dioxide, oxidised, then absorbed — the contact process

is an input to

  • Contact process — process · burned to sulfur dioxide, increasingly recovered from oil and gas rather than mined — and including the sulfur dioxide captured from ore roasting, which turns a smelter's principal pollutant into a feedstock
  • Vulcanisation — process · forms the cross-links between chains; how much is used sets everything from an elastic band to ebonite

is produced by

  • Claus process — process · recovered from the hydrogen sulfide stripped out of natural gas and crude oil — which is now almost the whole of world supply

Sources

  • Material World
    Our own writing
  • Wikidata
    Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)
  • PubChem
    US National Library of Medicine · Mixed — aggregated third-party content, rights retained by depositors
  • NIST — National Institute of Standards and Technology
    United States Department of Commerce · US Government work — public information, credit requested

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Sulfur back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Upstream — what it comes from

  • Sulfur → is extracted from (historically the principal source of sulfur for sulfuric acid) → Pyrite
  • Sulfur → is produced by (recovered from the hydrogen sulfide stripped out of natural gas and crude oil — which is now almost the whole of world supply) → Claus process

Downstream — what it becomes

  • Sulfur → is an input to (burned to sulfur dioxide, increasingly recovered from oil and gas rather than mined — and including the sulfur dioxide captured from ore roasting, which turns a smelter's principal pollutant into a feedstock) → Contact process → produces (absorbed into existing acid as oleum, then diluted — never added to water directly) → Sulfuric acid → is used as (treating phosphate rock to make phosphoric acid and superphosphate) → Fertiliser
  • Sulfur → is a source for (burned to sulfur dioxide, oxidised, then absorbed — the contact process) → Sulfuric acid → is used as (treating phosphate rock to make phosphoric acid and superphosphate) → Fertiliser
  • Sulfur → is used as (as sulfuric acid, used to convert phosphate rock into soluble fertiliser) → Fertiliser
  • Sulfur → is an input to (forms the cross-links between chains; how much is used sets everything from an elastic band to ebonite) → Vulcanisation
  • Sulfur → is a source for (burned to sulfur dioxide, oxidised, then absorbed — the contact process) → Sulfuric acid → is used in (produced in greater tonnage than any other manufactured chemical, and a country's consumption of it was once used as an index of its industrial development) → Chemical manufacture
  • Sulfur → is an input to (burned to sulfur dioxide, increasingly recovered from oil and gas rather than mined — and including the sulfur dioxide captured from ore roasting, which turns a smelter's principal pollutant into a feedstock) → Contact process → is used in (the route to sulfuric acid, and one of the oldest continuously operated industrial catalytic processes) → Chemical manufacture

These are the most distinct paths onward. Sulfur ends up in others besides.