SULPHUR RECOVERY

Alstom Power Energy Recovery

ALSTOM

Power Energy Recovery GmbH

Introduction

Steam

Claus SRU Burner

Steam Drum

Alstom Power Energy Recovery

GmbH is a technology leader in the
design and manufacture of process
heat transfer equipment and systems
for the metallurgical, petrochemical,
syngas, chemical, glass smelting,
and carbon black industry. More than
400 waste heat recovery systems
have been built. Based on its own
long term know-how and experience
Alstom Power Energy Recovery
GmbH supplies state-of-technology
systems, customer-designed to meet
the todays requirements.

Sulphur Recovery

BFW

Air

Sour Gas I
Fuel Gas

Reaction Chamber

Inline Burner
Air

Fuel Gas
Sour Gas II

Mixing Chamber

Steam

Stack
BFW

Incinerator WHB

Alstom products in Claus processes

The sulphur components of various

feedstocks are removed from the
process gases as concentrated acid
gases, comprising hydrogen sulphite
and carbon dioxide. The H2S containing gases are converted to liquid or
solid elemental sulphur, or to sulphuric acid.
There is an ongoing tendency to
increase the single sulphur recovery plant size to maximum extent,
to minimize the specific sulphur
recovery costs. Alstoms design and
manufacturing concepts are developed for those globalized markets. Incorporating Alstoms broad engineering expertise and technical lessons
learned from similar heat recovery
processes, we can guarantee a highly
reliable and first quality product at
reasonable cost, as expected by our
customers.
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Waste Heat Boiler

Piggyback in sulphuric acid process

Reaction Chamber and Burner

Alstom Power Energy Recovery

provides reaction chamber in combi
nation with waste heat recovery
boilers for all kind of Claus SRU
units.

ferrules. Selecting the appropriate

equipment is as important as the
static calculation of reaction furnace

and waste heat boiler unit.

Alstom uses state-of-the-art programs for static calculations.

Because the heart of the reaction

chamber is a high intensity mixing
burner, Alstom Power Energy
Recovery works together with all
well-reputed SRU burner suppliers
worldwide.
Alstom will choose the best refrac
tory and ferrules, which are available on the market for each special
application.
Key factor of the reaction chamber is
the refractory lining in combination
with the checker wall and the

RHI Dinaris

Aecometric

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Design Features of Shell & Tube Boilers

Design features of
ALSTOMs shell and
tube boilers

a gap-free full penetration tube to

tube sheet connection and as a side
effect increased cooling of the gas
inlet area is achieved.

This state of technology tube to tube

sheet connection was implemented
in the ASME code Sect. I & Sect. VIIIDiv1 in 2003 by Alstoms initiative.

Based on decades of experiences in

designing and manufacturing of shell
and tube boilers for high demanding
process conditions, Alstom induced
sophisticated design features to its
boilers.

Tube Sheet Design

To avoid excessive stress, built up in
tubes and tube to tube sheet connection due to the differential elongation
shell/tube, the tube sheet must be
kept as flexible as possible; the thin
tube sheet also runs cooler during
operation and so contributes to operational safety.
The latest development is Alstoms
proprietary design called super
flexible tube sheet (SUPLEX tube
sheet).

Principle sketch of Alstoms SUPLEX tube sheet

Tube to Tube Sheet

Connection
Due to very high gas inlet temper
atures ordinary tube to tube sheet
connections (tubes rolled and
welded) should not be used, as
crevice corrosion defects in the nonwelded portion can occur.
The only possibility to eliminate the
risk of crevice corrosion is to provide
Crevice-free tube to tube sheet connection
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Ferrules
Alstom has long-term experience in
manufacturing of shell & tube boilers
and is familiar with reliable and prov
en ferrule designs established.
In common, all ferrules extend
behind the tube sheet and have to
be wrapped with compressed fibre
for good insulation and proper fit into
the tubes. Monitoring of the ferrules
during regular shutdowns shows
lifetime improvements.

Tube sheet-tubeferrule assemblies

In modern SRU processes the gas
temperatures reach up to ~1650C
(3000F) and carbon steel is deteriorated by sulfidation if the operating
metal temperatures rise above
315C (600F). Alstoms tube
sheet-tube-ferrule assembly offers
clear advantage over the traditional
arrangement.
The ideal composition of the flexible
and thin tube sheet combined with
the crevice-free tube to tube sheet
welding results in lowering the max.
tube sheet skin temperature by
approx. 25C (45F), compared to
the traditional arrangement.

The traditional design is to embed

the ferrules in the tube sheet lining,
offering thermal protection at economical material cost.

Solid head ferrules afford lowest

maintenance downtime, as these
ferrules can be pulled out and reinserted without refractory dryout.

Alstom assembly

295C
(563F)

255C
(491F)

Traditional assembly
320C
(608F)

255C
(491F)

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Water-tube-type Waste Heat Boiler

Water-tube-type
waste heat boiler
For superheated steam generation,
water-tube-type waste heat boilers
are common, contributing greatly
to the economic efficiency of the
process.
Being suitable to handle highest gas
flow rates, this type of waste heat
boilers offers all design opportunities
to provide control of the gas outlet,
respectively steam outlet temperature:
External gas bypass (with or
without refractory lining)
Internal gas bypass (straight
through or with heating surface)
Temperature control by waterside
only

Internal gas bypass with heating surfaces

Steam Drum

Start up
steam

Waste Heat Boiler

Atmos.

WHB

PID waterside temperature control

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External gas bypass

Incinerator Waste Heat Boiler

and Air Preheater

Tailgas of Claus sulphur recovery

plants contains some residual H2S
and other combustible constituents.
For environmental protection reasons
the tailgas has to be treated in such
a way that sulphur is discharged into
the atmosphere in the form of SO2
only.

Alstom can offer complete thermal

oxidizer packages by adding further
components, i.e.:
Combustion air fans
Thermal oxidizer and burner
Fuel gas valve train
Combustion air preheaters
Ducts and stack

When tailgas is treated in thermal

oxidizers the thermal energy can be
recovered by an adjacent waste heat
boiler either as saturated or super
heated steam.
Furthermore, external steam can be
superheated or combustion air be
preheated.
Alstom has long-term experience
with tailgas boilers for different
types of processes. With the background of this experience, Alstom
developed boiler components
meeting the industrys demands on
availability, maintainability, efficien
cy and environmental protection.
These components typically consist
of an evaporator bundle arranged
upstream, superheater bundles with
desuperheater and evaporator bun
dles as water-tube-design, with bare
or finned tubes.
Depending on transport restrictions
the waste heat boiler can be deliv
ered completely assembled, or in
largest possible modules.

Thermal incinerator and waste heat boiler

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Alstom Power Energy Recovery GmbH

Ellenbacher Strasse 10
D-34123 Kassel, Germany
Phone +49-561-9527-0
info.shg@power.alstom.com
www.shg-schack.com
Alstom Power Energy Recovery GmbH
Parsevalstrasse 9A
D-40468 Dsseldorf, Germany

10/2009 Sulphur Recovery

Phone +49-211-4726-0
info.schack@power.alstom.com
www.shg-schack.com