Category: Technology

As all industries come under pressure to decarbonise, are there ways to reduce the carbon footprint of sulphur recovery operations?

A sulphuric acid plant forms critical material and energy interfaces with other plants in several different types of chemical and metallurgical complexes. Shailesh Sampat of SNC-Lavalin discusses how the acid plant design is customised to match the product mix and the energy requirements of the complex to provide the optimum solution for energy and material requirements.

Ricardo L. Sepulveda of PegasusTSI reviews options to decrease the CO2 footprint of a fertilizer industrial complex and illustrates the technical and economic feasibility of utilising clean energy from a sulphuric acid plant in a fertilizer complex to produce green hydrogen, which in turn can be used to produce green methanol or green ammonia.

A new cost-effective alternative sulphur technology, providing a simple and robust process to achieve an overall sulphur recovery efficiency of 99.9+% is being developed by Saudi Aramco. J. P. O’Connell and I.A. Alami of Saudi Aramco discuss the new technology, its benefits and current stage of development.

State-of-the art technologies offered by thyssenkrupp, Casale and Stamicarbon are helping make nitrates production more secure and sustainable.

Phosphate manufacturing is being enhanced thanks to process integration, digitalisation and other advances.

The production of syngas from hydrocarbon feedstock uses a number of catalytic steps to increase efficiency and maximise conversion while minimising energy consumption. In this article we report on the latest developments in water gas shift catalysis from Johnson Matthey, Clariant and Topsoe, and shift converter design from Casale.

Stamicarbon offers advanced scrubbing technologies for fertilizer granulation plants and prilling towers. This article describes the technology and experience with the second operational MMV scrubber, which is installed at the Dakota Gasification Company’s (DGC) urea granulation plant, and highlights the successful pilot test with its JV scrubbing technology.

Decreasing the carbon intensity of sulphur recovery is one of the many actions that operators can take to help meet their climate ambitions. It is also becoming increasingly rewarding financially because of the rising cost of carbon emissions. In this article, G. Kidambi of Shell Projects & Technology demonstrates the potential to cut the carbon intensity of tail gas treating units by more than 50% through swapping to the latest SCOT ULTRA amine solvent and catalyst technologies.

As the world looks to a lower carbon future, refineries are having to examine their operating models, and look to, for example, renewable hydrogen production for desulphurisation technologies.