【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Processing Equipment】987–2017: The First Domestic Waste Heat Boiler for Flue Gas Incineration in Natural Gas Purification Units
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The chemical processing industry has seen significant development over the past decade; let’s praise the prosperity and strength of modern China. By sharing our insights, we can encourage more people to participate and make the discussions more lively. HaiChuan becomes even better with your involvement – we welcome everyone to join in the forum discussions. Have a happy weekend! ********************************************* At the Puguang Natural Gas Processing Plant in Dazhou, Sichuan, which has the highest daily processing capacity in Asia, a large waste heat boiler is installed at the end of each of the 12 units used for processing high-sulfur natural gas. This boiler is used to completely decompose and purify harmful gases such as sulfur dioxide present in the exhaust gases after gas purification, thereby achieving energy savings and compliance with emission standards. Since the Puguang gas field came online in October 2009, these specialized boilers have been equipped with Italian equipment, which is irreplaceable. In recent years, 4 units of this “foreign device” have experienced leakage failures. As it is imported equipment, every time maintenance is needed, the foreign suppliers not only have long delivery times and high prices, but also fail to provide timely technical support, causing many difficulties and disruptions to normal production. In order to completely get rid of the situation where foreign companies held a stranglehold, in 2013 Sinopec Group designated the waste heat boilers used in the flue gas incinerators of natural gas purification units as key projects for domestic production, and invited and organized several well-known design firms, research institutions, and manufacturing companies to work together on solving these technical challenges.
With no experience to draw on, the process of localization transformation is bound to be a difficult and protracted struggle. Leveraging the Puguang gas field, which serves as the most demanding \"testing ground,\" oilfield technicians, together with renowned research institutions and manufacturing enterprises across the country, have worked together to advance the localization of key equipment. In the domestic transformation of waste heat boilers, the design temperature of the boilers is relatively high, and the temperature drop gradient of the flue gas is also large. At the same time, due to the start-up and shutdown of on-site equipment, there is a risk of corrosion caused by high-temperature sulfur and low-temperature acid dew points, and it is difficult to recover the waste heat from the flue gas. Starting from aspects such as thermal calculations, equipment structure selection, and pipe end welding structure selection, and after going through the arduous process of \"introduction, digestion, and absorption,\" the technicians spent nearly 4 years before finally managing to put the first domestically produced waste heat boiler for exhaust gas combustion in natural gas purification units into use at the Puguang gas field at the beginning of 2017. This achievement broke the monopoly of imported waste heat boilers in domestic gas fields with high sulfur content. The renovation of the purification unit, the Claus furnace, is also not easy. The group company organized specialized research efforts; technical personnel conducted extensive research, and after many challenges, they developed a lining structure for Claus furnaces, which was applied for the first time in sulfur recovery units. Already, more than 20 technical specifications related to the lining material have reached international advanced levels. Breakthroughs have also been achieved in the domestic production of pipes used to connect gas production wells to heating furnaces. The main area of the Puguang gas field uses imported nickel-based alloy pipes, while in the construction of the Dawan area, technicians creatively developed a centrifugal casting process; the high-nickel-based alloy oil pipes developed independently have reached an internationally leading level.
For domestic waste heat boilers, not only is the purchase price 4 million yuan lower than before, but the technicians have also added a economizer and a feedwater preheater to this domestic equipment, enabling full utilization of the waste heat from the high-temperature flue gas and achieving better energy-saving and environmental protection results. A single waste heat boiler can increase the production of superheated steam by 40,000 tons per year, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by over 9,000 tons. ”
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