Keep your sulphur recovery unit online and efficient

Comprimo and Ametek now offer the Analyser Air Control Technology (2ACT) Solution to the industry in which the information for the SRU air control is available 6-7 minutes earlier with the installation of an acid gas feed analyser-based feed forward control. This improvement to conventional SRU combustion air control systems enables operating companies to control their assets closer to design capacity at higher recovery efficiency and with fewer unscheduled outages.

Marco van Son, Gerton Molenaar and Ines Hernandez-Virla (Comprimo, part of Worley)

Worldwide, there are more than 2,500 individual sulphur recovery units (SRUs) installed, predominantly at refineries and natural gas processing facilities. Given the stoichiometric nature of the H2S conversion to elemental sulphur in every SRU, the precise and quick control of the combustion air to the main burner is key to maintaining high sulphur recovery efficiencies (SRE) and low SO2 emissions. This is particularly challenging when the compositions of the acid gases feeding the SRU changes, as it can lead to increased SO2 emissions and negatively impact refinery/gas plant throughput. Especially in refineries dealing with two acid gas streams, amine acid gas (AAG) and sour water acid gas (SWAG), with the SWAG typically experiencing more hydrocarbon carry-over events, the impact can be more pronounced.