Gas Processors Association Europe

Kees Smit, Shell Global Solutions, Netherlands

Molecular sieves can be used in a temperature-swing adsorption process downstream an amine or physical solvent to remove water traces of mercaptans and other sulphur species.  The design and operation of the mol sieve unit involves a number of challenges due to possible BTX co-adsorption and potentially fast deactivation of the sieves.  In addition, the transient nature of the temperature-swing adsorption process introduces challenges in the design of the sulphur recovery unit (SRU) and the regeneration-gas treating for the mol sieve unit.  Deactivation can be mitigated using a novel regeneration process, while transients in the regeneration gas can be smoothed using a peak-shaving scheme. 

These and other process and engineering solutions to design and operational challenges encountered by Shell Global Solutions are discussed herein.