Regarding the safety valves on rich and lean amine heat exchangers
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This post was last edited by liaifeng on 2018-8-9 09:28. Nowadays, some amine liquid regeneration units (especially those using imported process packages) are equipped with safety valves on their rich-amine/lean-amine heat exchangers or lean-amine coolers. My question is: are safety valves necessarily required to be installed on the equipment? Is it possible to place it on a platform located above the device at a certain distance? Furthermore, is it appropriate to discharge to the acidic gas flare line when the safety valve activates?
A safety valve is not necessary for the rich-lean liquid heat exchanger
How are import process packages handled at present?
In principle, the safety valve should be as close as possible to the equipment it is meant to protect. Although there are cases where the safety valve itself is at a certain distance from the equipment, it is best to have a certification issued by a design agency to ensure lawful use! As for the discharge from the safety valve of the heat exchanger for rich and lean amine solutions, choosing to vent the acidic gas to a flare doesn’t seem very reasonable to me. The reason is that one involves gas-phase pipelines while the other involves liquid-phase components; there is a risk that liquid components might accumulate in the pipelines, leading to potential accidents. Therefore, I suggest directing the discharge directly to the waste solvent tank or the solvent preparation tank
Typically, imported process packages are equipped with safety valves, but since the basic design and detailed design are usually carried out by domestic design institutes, the problem I mentioned arises.