About the book

After an initial decline in the sulfur industry in the 1990s due to environmental restrictions and other legislation, the sulfur industry has steadily been recovering, especially in the most recent years. And, even though traditionally sulfur was obtained mainly in elemental form from mining, at the moment, sulfur recoveries from oil, coal, and gas processing plants are increasingly becoming important alternate sulfur sources for the industry. In the same way sulfur had an uninhabited application in agriculture, medicine, rubber, building, and materials industries but now the changing global economic environments occasioned by environmental restrictions and technological transformations, among other forces, are creating new market opportunities in the sulfur value addition chains.

The current book aims to provide an overview of the traditional sulfur industry by examining the historical development of the industry and examining global trends in sulfur production, distribution, and consumption. It also aims to explore emerging trends in the sulfur industry to inform the immanent tendencies, especially in technology development in sulfur productions, utilization, and marketing. Because of the importance of the sulfur industry to the universal environment, an entire section of this book is intended to be devoted to the analysis of trends in environmental pollution and emerging mitigation technologies. Nonetheless, more than ever before, the demand for sulfur has been growing steadily and many players in the industry have increasingly been pursuing emerging market opportunities. It is anticipated that many players in the industry, technology, academia, and related fields will find this volume to be particularly a useful resource for strategic research, training, and in their day-to-day operations within their areas of specialization.