How resilient is your sulfur recovery operation?

As refiners continue to process increasingly sour feedstock to meet global energy demand, will your sulfur recovery unit be able to handle this requirement? While modern Claus units do a remarkable job of removing sulfur, any sulfur not removed by the Claus unit must be removed by expensive tail gas treatment units (TGTUs). Given the enormous cost to operate a TGTU, simply using the unit to make-up for upstream inefficiencies in the Claus process may not be a viable alternative. Rather a refiner needs to examine every tool in their arsenal to ensure that their plant operates at peak performance.

A tail gas and air demand analyzer is one such tool in an operator’s tool-belt for improving sulfur recovery, lowering cost, and maintaining compliance. This is crucial as sulfur recovery plants face a range of operating conditions that they need to be able to handle. For example, unreacted hydrocarbons that enter the Claus furnace will compete with H₂S for oxygen and lower the overall sulfur recovery. In another example, non-reactive elements like H₂O, CO₂, and N₂ can lower the furnace’s flame temperature. This can lead to low recovery, and potentially lead to plugged catalyst beds and heat exchangers. Having an agile tail gas analyzer that can operate effectively under these conditions while providing real-time information can be the difference between keeping the plant online or not.

If you can’t remember when your analyzer was purchased or last serviced, now might be the time to consider replacing your analyzer with one that is more resilient and more capable of handling process upsets. Some features to be on the lookout for include:

• In-situ sampling – eliminate sample lines that can potentially become plugged with sulfur by analyzing the sample in place
• Self-maintaining technology – provides automated steam cleaning and sulfur removal
• Solid state design – eliminates moving parts that may need replacement
• Dispersive spectroscopy – reduces noise and eliminates the need for fragile filters

Applied Analytics TLG-837 Tail Gas and Air Demand analyzer is an excellent option that includes all these features. You can click on the video to learn more.