Refinery
Sour Water Stripper Decontamination
The sour water stripper removes acid gas and ammonia from process sour water streams and is part of the plant’s waste treatment plant. These streams come from multiple units in the refinery process. Sour water stripper decontamination occurs because of the production of H2S and ammonia through the refining process.
Chemicals Utilized
Sour Water Stripper Process
The sour water tank collects the process sour water. Sources of the sour water include: hydrotreaters, hydrocrackers, fluidized catalytic cracker, amine treaters, atmospheric tower and vacuum units. The sour water tank is the feed to the sour water stripper tower. Sometimes there is a phase separator vessel before the water storage tank.
1
Steam stripping of ammonia and H2S from the sour water feed occurs via the steam supply from a reboiler and/or direct steam injection.
2
The removed ammonia and H2S gases go to the SRU (Claus) unit to convert the H2S to elemental Sulfur.
3
Meanwhile, the stripped water is either recycled into steam for the stripper or sent for further processing at the wastewater treatment plant.
What Problems do the Sour Water Stripper Unit Cause?
Due to the process in the sour water stripper, there is high concentrations of ammonia and H2S both in the residual water and air spaces within the unit. Additionally, water-born scaling, including FeS, are present in the phase separator, sour water tank, reboiler, quench water pump and the stripper. Also, the sour water tank has bottom sludge which contains primarily inorganic salts and some organic contaminants. Finally, the tank vessel generally contains some LEL gases.
Our Chemical Cleaning Solution
Chemical decontamination of the sour water stripper is the most efficient way of cleaning.
1
Neutralize H2S Gases
Apply FQE® H2S Scavenger through the residual sour water process to neutralize harmful H2S gases. This chemical cleaning method results in the rapid elimination of H2S in both air and water sources.
2
Neutralize Ammonia
To quickly remove ammonia vapor from the air space, apply FQE Ammonia Odor. At the same time, the ammonia in the water neutralizes and will no longer be a hazard.
3
Descale and Decontaminate Unit
The application of FQE LEL-Vapor and FQE Pyrophoric decontaminates LEL and iron sulfide concerns in the sour water stripper. Application of FQE Scale-Solve effectively chemically cleans all water born scaling throughout the unit.
