Absorber Max. Temperature
Absorber Max. Temperature
(OP)
Hello, everybody. Can anyone tell me what should be the maximum allowable temperature (or range of temperature) in an absorber from an alkanolamine plant for gas treating, for the various types of amines, i.e., MEA, DEA, DGA, MDEA?. Thanks.





RE: Absorber Max. Temperature
RE: Absorber Max. Temperature
RE: Absorber Max. Temperature
Common fixes to high contactor bulge temperature is lowering the lean amine feed temp (maintaining 5C spread bewteen the feed gas temp), lowering inlet gas temp (if control is available), or increasing amine circ rate (if equiment capacity allows for it).
Andrew Lechelt
Technical Support Engineer
Quadra Chemicals
www.quadrachemicals.com
RE: Absorber Max. Temperature
Is this a major problem when dealing with MDEA as well? In my experience MDEA is less corrosive than MEA and DEA. or is this due to its lower heat of reaction so that the contactor temperature never reaches those levels?
What is the limiting factor and temperature when dealing with K2CO3 ?
RE: Absorber Max. Temperature
With primary and seconary amines, the temeprature bulge is generally of greater magnitude because both the H2S and CO2 react quicky.
With poor operating conditions you can still reach high bulge temperatures using MDEA. This being said, I dont really run across this issue very much (high bulge temperature). We might see it more if all contactors had instrumentation to measure tray temps, but they dont.
On your point where you mention that MEA and DEA are less cororsive, clarification is required. No amines are corrosive, they are alkaline fluids and are used as corrosion inhibitors in some applications. You may be referring to the fact that primary and secondary amines have corrosive CO2 degradation products, where MDEA does not. This is a whole other issue entirely.
I cant comment on PotCarb systems as I dont have much experience dealing with them. Sorry about that.
Andrew Lechelt
Technical Support Engineer
Quadra Chemicals
www.quadrachemicals.com