Aspects of this disclosure enhance elimination problems that freezing sulfur creates with gas-liquid parallel plate separators by integrally heating the parallel plate gas-liquid separator assembly. Through integral heating the duration of time that the separator apparatus remains above the freezing temperature of elemental sulfur is prolonged, thereby, allowing the opportunity for residual liquid sulfur to drain from the parallel plate assembly during upsets in unit operations and after a sulfur recovery unit shutdown event, thereby reducing or eliminating the operation and maintenance problems that may occur with existing separator designs.