Magazine: Sulphur

DuPont Clean Technologies has announced the successful startup and performance test of a 300,000 t/a STRATCO® alkylation unit licensed at the Hengli Petrochemical Company’s new refinery complex on Changxing Island in the Harbour Industrial Zone, China. The new alkylation unit enables Hengli to produce high-quality alkylate from a 100% isobutylene feed stream, catalysed by sulphuric acid. This first-of-a-kind unit was developed through DuPont research into the best ways to maximise product octane and minimise end point with this feedstock. Hengli had awarded DuPont the contract for the new alkylation unit as well as a MECS® sulphuric acid regeneration unit in 2015.

G. Bowerbank and W. Blas of Shell Catalysts & Technologies discuss low cost strategies to maximise value at existing gas processing facilities. Changing solvents, introducing advanced column internals or a combination of both are relatively simple and cost-effective options for boosting production or revenue with minimal investment.

An advanced mecaptan removal process has been developed and implemented by RATE. The RATE-Oximer process is an oxidative air-based regeneration process, designed to remove mercaptans from liquid and vapour phases. M. Rameshini of RATE describes the key features of the process and its applications.

Legislation to control emissions of sulphur dioxide continues to tighten, via vehicle exhausts, and refinery and smelter emissions, leading to increased recovery of both sulphur and sulphur dioxide.

Do you remember Peak Oil? This was the theory, driven by research originally conducted by petroleum geologist M.K. Hubbert in the 1950s, that oil production inevitably followed a bell curve, with supply eventually peaking as easier reserves were exhausted, leading to an inflexion point in production and a long tailing off. Originally Hubbert was talking solely about US oil production, and he seemed to have been borne out by the evidence. But a lack of discoveries of new large fields in the 1990s led to a revision of the theory that predicted a global production peak in 2005-6, potentially leading to rapidly rising oil prices until demand destruction occurred.

Fluor’s case study of recently constructed ultra-sour gas treating facilities provides new information about the operation of DGA-based AGRUs. B. Lynch and C. Graham of Fluor Corporation discuss how using this knowledge and leveraging the recent improvements to process simulators in the gas sweetening space, Fluor has developed an efficient, flexible, and cost effective solution in the two-stage absorption process to maximise mercaptan removal from ultra-sour gases with minimal equipment.

Fugitive dust emissions during the handling and storage of formed sulphur can result in negative environmental impacts and under specific conditions result in an explosion hazard. Enersul has developed a dust suppression system specifically targeted at controlling sulphur dust particles. The Enersul SafeFoam Transfer System (STS) reduces sulphur fines at critical transfer points throughout any sulphur handling system, resulting in a significantly safer and more environmentally friendly sulphur handling system.

IPCO provides an update on its latest activities, with flexible processes enabling IPCO’s project for the first drum granulation plant in Europe to remain on track despite unprecedented Covid-19 restrictions.

On June 30th, following clearance from the European Commission, Outotec completed the year-long merger of Metso’s Minerals business with Outotec via a partial demerger of Metso. The newly formed company, Metso Outotec, will focus on leadership in sustainable minerals and metals processing and recycling technologies. Headquartered in Finland, Metso Outotec employs over 15,000 professionals in more than 50 countries and its combined sales for 2019 were e4.2 billion.

“T here are,” Mark Twain once remarked, “three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It’s certainly difficult to know what to make of economic statistics and indicators at the moment, in the world turned upside down that the Covid-19 pandemic has delivered. Here in the UK, we are told that April and May saw the national economy contract by 25%, the largest fall in 300 years of the Bank of England’s economic record keeping, and the situation is very similar across much of the developed world. But how real is that figure? After all, we were all sent home in March, to ‘lock down’ and prevent the spread of the virus, and we are only now starting to move back towards some semblance of normality. Some of us, fortunately or not, have still been able to work from home, but for much of the economy, especially for much of the service sector; tourism, travel, restaurants and hotels, theatres and cinemas – there has been zero activity. Remove half of the largest sector of the economy for three months and surely a 25% fall in output is exactly what you’d expect? But is that real, or just a number? Has that activity gone for good, or, now that we are emerging, blinking into the sunlight again, can we switch the economy back on again as easily as we switched it off?