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Saturated Steam
MEA Solution
MEA Stripper
Vapor
MEA Reboiler
MEA Solution
LeanMEA Solution
This is the conventional, industrial manner of generating food-grade CO2 in a continuous, steady, and controlled scheme. Note that the 15% MEA (wt.) solution is kept indirectly away from the very hot reboil heat generated by the use of a direct-fired reboiler. Although this method involves the cost of a conventional steam boiler, it eliminates a lot of the degradation products that are formed when MEA comes in contact with temperatures in excess of 300 oF. It also allows for easy and convenient means to ensure a maximum in the fuel combustion to produce as near a stoichiometric quantity of CO2 without worrying about how reboiler heat is affected. The amount of steam produced by this method is well in excess of that required in the MEA Reboiler and this fact enables the process to have sufficient steam available to not only introduce an excess of steam into the reboiler (which ensures that acid gas loadings will be reduced in the Stripper with ease), but it also provides steam for an MEA Reclaimer (which greatly ensures the non-corrosive state of the circulating solution and the efficient operation of the plant.
The application of a cheaper ("low capital investment") direct-fired reboiler in order to save the capital cost of the MEA reboiler reduces the Capital Investment of the plant, but it introduces many serious and expensive maintenance and operating problems for the operator ("owner") of the plant. A direct fired reboiler can accelerate the degradation of MEA into a very corrosive state and cause many corrosion problems in the reboiler as well as in all the rest of the equipment. This is a classical example of getting exactly what you paid for. If the eventual owner is not interested in reducing his operating and maintenance costs and other problems, then he/she doesn't pay attention to such important details that will return to threaten his operating profit margin in the end.
t reboil heat generated a conventional steam A comes in contact with to ensure a maximum in ut worrying about how in excess of that nt steam available to not loadings will be aimer (which greatly ation of the plant.
order to save the capital oduces many serious of the plant. A directand cause many his is a classical example educing his operating such important details
Nitrogen to Atm.
Flue Gas
CW Return
LP Cooler
This height, together with H2 should be related to the available pressure in the LP Cooler Separator and give sufficient packing height for efficent scrubbing. H1
H2 This height should be sufficiently high to allow effient condensate over flow from the bottom of the exhaust scrubber and allow for taking a solution sample for analysis.
LP Cooler-Condenser
LC
35 psig Steam
Condensate
Lean MEA
New Mexico Oil Patch, removing CO2 and H2S. His plants employed both direct-fired reboilers and steam-heated reboilers. Some unique and innovative features that the IPEC skid-mounted MEA plants incorporated were:
The use of a conventional, fire tube boiler to generate the CO2 gas as well as low pressure steam (35-40 psig). All the steam generated was sent to a U-tube bundle in a kettle Reboiler that formed part of the Stripper (as shown in the illustration above) and all the produced condensate returned to the boiler BY GRAVITY. There was no condensate pump(s), condensate controls, deaerators, or condensate instrumentation. Since Bob Graff needed an MEA heat exchanger and an MEA cooler, he placed these directly below the kettle Reboiler and in doing so, had to raise the reboiler and its steam tube bundle to a height that was normally above the top of the steam boiler. This made the application of condensate gravity return practical and efficient. The CO2 stripper used no "fancy" trays or packing. There were approximately 10 trays used in the IPEC Stripper and each was nothing more than a circular, 5/16" carbon steel plate with a segment cut out. The segment was approximately 15 to 20% of the diameter - depending on the size of the stripper and the CO2 capacity. These Strippers worked well and never needed, inspection or maintenance. The design could not be more simplified. All the condensate produced in the LP Cooler-Condenser down stream of the Stripper was collected a Vapor-Liquid Separator and the condensate was returned to the solution system via the sump of absorber. THERE WAS NO CONDENSATE RETURNED TO THE TOP OF THE STRIPPER AS SO-CALLED "REFLUX". This not only worked very simply and trouble-free, it required no reflux pump, flow meter, vales, controls, and instrumentation. IPEC incorporated an Amine Reclaimer - a means to re-distill a portion of the Lean Amine in order to precipitate out any heavy, polimerized amine products or degradation by-products. This device kept the solution working for very long periods without suffering corrosion in the basic carbon steel material that the plant was constructed out of. Corrosion was effectively kept under control to the degree that the Reclaimer was kept operating. This feature worked very well and practically due to the availability of steam from the boiler. With a direct-fired Reboiler, the use of a Reclaimer is not possible.
It will be noted by those engineers with some amine plant experience that the above designed operations are in distinct difference with designs and fabrications of such illustrious engineering firms like Fluor, Brown & Root, and many others who always propose and build Amine absorbers and Strippers with at least 20+ very sophisticated trays or packings. They also insist on employing a so-called "Reflux" of condensate on the CO2 Stripper. What none of the design or process engineers with these firms have ever been able to explain, prove, or calculate to me is the factual and engineering REASONS for doing what they do. They just do it that way because they have always done it. Yet, they cannot explain the logical and engineering need to have a so-called "Reflux" in what is nothing more than a stripping operation of a non-condensable gas from a liquid solution. What, if any, purpose there is in such a futile attempt is left unspoken. No one has yet to explain why the Reflux is needed at the top of a CO2 (or an H2S) stripper. The real truth is: IT ISN'T - AND NEVER WAS - REQUIRED. The
many IPEC and Girdler plants that were built and operated have proven this throughout the last 70+ years. And I have followed this principle and proved it in all the plants I designed, built, and operated as well. What is really embarrassing is that practically all major text books on gas purification - as well as most authors of journal articles - fail to see or recognize this false and useless engineering design in amine plant design. All that a "Reflux" of condensate can accomplish in the CO 2 stripper is a "scrubbing" of the ascending vapors in the top section of the tower in order to avoid entrainment of MEA in the overheads. But if that is a necessity, then why not design the stripper and its diameter such that there is no entrainment in the first place? The Strippers I operated and designed never produced any entrainment - inspite of the inherent excess steam (water vapor) in the overheads due to using all of the boiler's steam production in the Reboiler tube bundle. Authors such as Kohl, Reisenfeld, Neilsen, Campbell, and Maddox - all intelligent and learned engineers - have failed to detect what is an obvious mistaken design that is useless and does absolutely nothing to improve an amine plant's operation. However, a guy like Bob Graff did spot this in 1950 and incorporated a much simpler and fool-proof method. If one goes to the trouble of using a McCabe-Thiele method of designing a CO2 Stripper, it will be quickly noted that building a CO2 Stripper with 20 trays - whether bubble cap, sieve type, or valve type - is an IGNORANT ENGINEERING OVERKILL. There is definitely no need for so many trays in an MEA Stripper. And thank goodness for that! There are enough troubles and problems to worry about in an MEA process without having to put up with investment, care, and maintenance of so many engineered trays. The latest actors in Amine Plants - such as DEA, MDEA, and even aMDEA - have the characteristic of being selective in absorbing H 2S with preference over CO2 and are actively used in Sour Gas applications. These solutions also demonstrate a propensity for easily having H2S stripped out of solution in the Stripper. Therefore, they should require less trays than even an MEA Stripper.