B.S. in Chemical Engineering
MEETING ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS – REFINERY FLARE SYSTEM RETROFIT
Amine Gas Treatment
In order to lower the hydrogen sulfide content of an existing refinery's flare gas, its flare system was retrofitted with an amine scrubbing column. My employer tasked me with equipment sizing, creating report documents for the client, and creating process drawings for the project.
Includes: Design Basis excerpts, PFDs, and P&IDs.
Project Premise
"The [REDACTED] Flare receives Flare Gas (FG) composed of vent streams from [SITE AREA1] as well as various utility-type vent streams from the refinery. [CLIENT] must lower the H2S content of the FG to be compliant with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s (LDEQ) requirement of less than 162 ppmv. This project focuses on achieving LDEQ compliance while maintaining similar throughput to the Flare.
A new blower (with spare) will send untreated FG from the Primary Knockout (KO) Drum to a new H2S absorber to lower its H2S content using LEAN [AMINE] from the existing [AMINE] regeneration systems. RICH [AMINE] exiting the bottom of the absorber will be transferred with a new pump (with spare) to one of the two existing [AMINE] H2S stripping columns located in [SITE AREA2] or [SITE AREA3] for regeneration. A new Water Seal Drum will be installed in the bypass of the H2S absorber to relieve the FG in an emergency, high pressure situation. A new CEMS analyzer will be installed downstream of the absorber to measure H2S in the FG utilizing a dry basis measurement on a rolling 3-hour average. To ensure compliance, the [AMINE] flow rate will be adjusted based on the FG flow rate and feedback from the new analyzer. The FG will flow from the absorber to the Secondary KO Drum and the Flare."
Equipment Sizing
This project, which occurred in the Summer of 2021, taught me how to size equipment, how to identify equipment that will affect other equipment sizing, and in what order to size equipment. These skills proved useful not only in my job as time passed, but also in my unit operations course and senior design course at LSU.
Process Flow Diagrams
I had sole responsibility for PFDs and P&IDs creation and development during this project. Constant communication with other process engineers working on the project was needed to ensure the drawings were always up to date for the client. Below are examples of the two PFDs used to communicate the process solution we devised to the client.
Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams
As previously mentioned, P&IDs were created and updated frequently by me over the course of the project. Below are examples of P&IDs from this project.
