Abstract
Sulfur recovery from acid gas (H2S and CO2), which is contained in fresh natural gas, can bring many economic and environmental benefits, and this topic has been studied for years. Finding an optimal operating condition for the factory is of much importance. In this paper, we built a reactor network analysis model with a detailed mechanism to describe and calculate the process in the sulfur recovery unit. This detailed mechanism included 94 species and 615 elementary reactions. Our model has a more accurate residence time than other existing models. This simulation model was verified with industrial data, and the calculation result was highly consistent with the industrial data and more accurate than other approaches. Then, we used this reactor network analysis model to study the effect of the excess air coefficient, the thermal reactor temperature, and the temperature of cooling water on the sulfur recovery efficiency of a real device in the Puguang gas field. The result showed the excess air coefficient and thermal reactor temperature had a clear impact on sulfur recovery efficiency. After analysis, we got the optimum condition parameters for this device. At last, these parameters were tested in the real sulfur recovery device, and the result was reasonable. Our research provides a way to improve the sulfur recovery process in the industry, and it can be helpful to reduce pollution emissions and improve economic performance.
Highlights
Sulfur recovery in natural gas extraction has been the subject of much research in the recent years. e Claus process is widely used to recover elementary sulfur from acid gas contained in fresh natural gas
[1] And, the gas from the sour water stripper (SWS) is a common fuel used in Claus process
Claus gas goes into the waste heat boiler and the first condenser to cool down, and after that the Claus gas is sent into the Claus reactors
Summary
Sulfur recovery in natural gas extraction has been the subject of much research in the recent years. e Claus process is widely used to recover elementary sulfur from acid gas contained in fresh natural gas. [1] And, the gas from the sour water stripper (SWS) is a common fuel used in Claus process. E authors in [8, 9] built a detailed reaction mechanism of the acid gas, and they used this mechanism to do a CFD simulation of the reactor furnace of the sulfur recovery units which focused on the flow fields of the process. Ough their work was valuable, the mechanism and model used in their work did not update with the recent research findings Most of all, their optimization results were not verified by the industrial data. En, the new analysis model with the revised mechanism was verified with industrial data and other simulation results After verification, this analysis scheme was used to do the condition optimization research of a real sulfur recovery unit in the Puguang Gas Field in China, and the calculation result was tested in the factory to see if the optimum parameters work well. We made a conclusion of this research in Section 5. e results of this research will provide further data to improve the process of elementary sulfur recovery in the industry, which can be helpful to reduce pollution emissions and improve economic performance
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