Understanding the kinetics of the formation and consumption of COS and CS 2 in the front end of the modified Claus process will be a significant step towards reducing the environmental impact of these plants. Specifically, homogeneous intrinsic rate expressions are needed for engineering design and simulation, which will lead to new, optimized ways of operating these plants. Hence, a high-temperature kinetic study of the COS decomposition reaction was carried out. Experiments were performed with inlet COS compositions in the range of 0.20-2.33 mol%, with pressures at 101-150 kPa and temperatures at 800-1100degreesC; these conditions cover the conditions typically encountered in the front end of the modified Claus process. The experimental results showed that COS conversion is dependent on the inlet concentration of COS, which contrasts with previously reported higher temperature studies. Finally, the COS decomposition kinetics were modeled as the sum of two reactions, which provided a satisfactory representation of experimental data.