A small, existing WSA plant (Source: Haldor Topsoe)
Haldor Topsoe A/S (Lyngby, Denmark) and Comprimo (part of Worley) have announced a global strategic alliance to jointly license the TopClaus sulfur removal and recovery solution. TopClaus helps users achieve more than 99.9% sulfur removal efficiency (SRE) by integrating two industry-proven technologies — Topsoe’s proprietary Wet gas Sulfuric Acid (WSA) process and Comprimo’s Claus process. In addition, cost of ownership is significantly lower than with traditional technologies such as Claus followed by a conventional amine-based tail gas treatment unit.
“We are extremely satisfied to enter into this alliance. Topsoe is an industry leader, and we share their commitment to provide customers around the world with smarter and more sustainable solutions to protect the environment,” says Frank Scheel, senior vice president, Comprimo.
“Thanks to this alliance, customers will benefit from a simpler, more robust and efficient plant design at a lower cost of ownership. TopClaus sulfur removal and recovery will enable them to comply with strict environmental regulations while protecting their profit. We are proud to be working with Comprimo, the world’s largest technology licensor of gas treating and sulfur recovery solutions,” says Rasmus Atle Breivik, product line director, Topsoe.
The Claus part of the TopClaus solution recovers elemental sulfur from acid gases. The tail gases from the Claus unit are then treated in the WSA unit, where the remaining sulfur compounds are converted into sulfuric acid. The sulfuric acid is returned directly to the Claus reaction furnace for reprocessing to elemental sulfur, with no sulfuric acid left as by-product. However, sulfuric acid can be drawn off for specific uses or for sale as desired.
The TopClaus solution significantly reduces the refinery’s CO2 footprint as it eliminates the need to incinerate tail gas. In addition, the WSA unit recovers as much as 90 % of the process heat in the shape of valuable superheated high-pressure steam. The steam can be used in other refinery processes or for generation of electricity. This results in much lower operating costs compared to any conventional amine-based technology that uses steam for amine regeneration and requires tail gas incineration.
The TopClaus solution is equally suited for greenfield projects as for debottlenecking of existing acid gas treatment plants, providing more uptime, increased capacity, and lower emissions.