Storage of Sulfuric Acid

http://www.uk.endress.com/

Materials look good, though a word of caution: anywhere H₂SO₄ becomes diluted some heat will be released, at which point something more exotic than PVC will be required, like PVDF. Check these materials for suitability with the supplier of the acid. Try optical refraction as a technique for leak detection; these were used satisfactorily at a clean water treatment plant on the eastern side of Manchester in the last couple of years, though they do need to be enclosed so that exterior light sources do not affect the sensing element. For something more substantial, try level probes operating on conductivity, with carbon-loaded PTFE as the wetted materials.

May I add to Slack's post re: dilute h2so4. Dilute h2so4 is more aggressive than pure commercial (98%) h2so4, and should be handled with extreme care. With the plastics available today, many of the storage and transport problem have gone away. Two suggestions, which you may have already taken into consideration, would be to add an air dryer on the vent to the storage tank or use nitrogen to maintain a slight positive pressure in the tank. The other would be to provide a curb around the tank that would contain the h2so4 should there be a spill, and fill the curbed area with limestone rock to neuturalize the acid. This was common practise back in the days of treating cooling towers with acid, called "ph modifiers".

Agreed. H2SO4 and water vapour need to be kept away from each other as best one can. Use of a lute (a double U-bend with an inert liquid in the bend) on the breather pipe on the tank may prove attractive.

The supplier's guidelines need to be checked before committing a design for the storage system to manufacture. Most reputable manufacturers and suppliers produce a safety data sheet containing this information and much more.