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Why can you only add oleum to water to get SO2(g) industrially instead of adding SO3(g) to H2O(l) immediately?

Answer 1

see below

the reaction between #SO_3 and H_2O# is too esotermic to make it happen immediately (34,4 Kcal /mol) while if #SO_3 # (attention, not # SO_2#) is add to oleum, the reaction is much less esotermic because water is missing. Water is add later to oleum to disperd the heat in a most wide masss

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Answer 2

Cooper Anderson

Adding SO3 directly to water is highly exothermic and can lead to violent splattering due to the rapid and intense heat release. This poses safety hazards and makes it impractical for industrial purposes. However, adding oleum (a solution of sulfur trioxide in concentrated sulfuric acid) to water allows for a controlled reaction, gradually producing sulfur dioxide gas without the risk of violent splattering.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.