Activated carbon cleanup of the acid gas feed to Claus sulfur plants

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:418185

Harruff, L G; Bushkuhl, S J ^[1]

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1. Saudi Aramco, Dhahran (Saudi Arabia)

This paper presents the details of a recently developed novel process using activated carbon to remove hydrocarbon contaminants from the acid gas feed to Claus sulfur recovery units. Heavy hydrocarbons, particularly benzene, toluene and xylene (BTX) have been linked to coke formation and catalyst deactivation in Claus converters. This deactivation results in reduced sulfur recovery and increased sulfur emissions from these plants. This effect is especially evident in split flow Claus plants which bypass some of the acid gas feed stream around the initial combustion step because of a low hydrogen sulfide concentration. This new clean-up process was proven to be capable of removing 95% of the BTX and other C{sub 6}{sup +} hydrocarbons from acid gas over a wide range of actual plant conditions. Following the adsorption step, the activated carbon was easily regenerated using low pressure steam. A post regeneration drying step using plant fuel gas also proved beneficial. This technology was extensively pilot tested in Saudi Aramco`s facilities in Saudi Arabia. Full scale commercial units are planned for two plants in the near future with the first coming on-line in 1997. The process described here represents the first application of activated carbon in this service, and a patent has been applied for. The paper will discuss the pilot plant results and the issues involved in scale-up to commercial size.

• OSTI ID: 418185
• Report Number(s): CONF-960348--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

03 NATURAL GAS
ACTIVATED CARBON
AROMATICS
CHEMICAL FEEDSTOCKS
CLAUS PROCESS
HYDROGEN SULFIDES
MATERIALS RECOVERY
REGENERATION
REMOVAL
SCRUBBING
SULFUR