Michael Poulsen - Haldor Topsoe A/S
For several decades, Haldor Topsoe A/S (HTAS) has been active in the field of large scale catalytic
oxidation plants for a variety of components such as Hydrogen Sulfide, Hydrocarbons, Hydrogen and Carbon
Monoxide etc., providing a variety of process options, catalysts and equipment design to the industry. In this
paper, we present a new low-temperature catalytic oxidation technology process for lean H2S gases.
The SMCTM technology is targeting sulfur abatement for low fuel value gas. The traditional way to treat
such gases is using support fuel in combination with thermal oxidation. Another alternative is to blend the low
fuel value gas with the feed gas to a Claus or a Sulphuric acid plant which often results in an increased
demand for support fuel and an increase of the size of such a unit.
The core of the SMCTM technology is the SMCTM catalyst which selectively oxidizes H2S and other Sulphur
compounds to SO2 and oxidizes higher hydrocarbons, Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide to CO2 and water.
The SMC catalyst operates at temperatures from 200 °C and the unique design of the catalyst enables
operation with very low-pressure drop, the low surplus of oxygen, the low formation of SO3 and without formation of NOx. If required, SO2 is removed in a caustic scrubber.
Areas of application include lean H2S gas from Amine and Physical solvent units within gas processing and LNG, Claus tail gas incineration and incinerating permeate from membrane separation units.
The low operating temperature and using a feed-effluent heat exchanger enables operation without supplementary fuel in most cases and the low-pressure drop further reduces the operation cost. The technology complies with the strictest environmental regulations and the low-temperature operation also provides simple construction using carbon steel and avoiding refractory lined equipment.
The technology, catalyst and benchmark cases with gas valorization will be presented. Also, the recommendation of technology selection in different cases will be presented.