Good morning. At Refined Technologies we have seen similar issues in Amine Regenerators that cause significant pressure drop across the towers. Fortunately RTI has a method of cleaning these towers that is proven to be effective and efficient in these cases.
The process would include taking a small window, approximately 12 hours, to bypass the tower, pump out the remaining rich amine, 1 hour water flush the tower to remove any residual amine on the trays, place steam on the tower, inject RTI’s patented chemistry that dissolves and removes ALL organic fouling including degraded amine and heavy oil, steam dwell the system to remove any residual chemistry, and then put the tower back into service.
You mentioned the fouling could be corrosion products. Note that RTI’s chemistry does not dissolve inorganic products. However, typical fouling in Amine systems tend to be organic and thus this method would be value added.
Feel free to contact me at jhofseth@r-t-i.com for further details and case studies on similar applications we have done across North America.