Specialty Equipment

The auto-ignition of molten sulfur and design of a modified-Claus SRU requires operators prevent excess oxygen from flowing through the unit. Temperature excursions and sulfur fires can be common if excess air enters an SRU.

Using nitrogen for nozzle purges, pre-ignition purge, and thermal reactor nozzle cooling is a simple solution. Nitrogen, however, can be a costly utility. Contact our design team to discuss how an automatic air/nitrogen purge system can minimize your nitrogen consumption.

Properly designed Amine Filtration is critical to reliable amine unit operation. Left unfiltered, amine streams will accumulate particulates and liquid hydrocarbons, causing foaming and equipment fouling resulting in significant amine losses, off-spec treated gas and accelerated corrosion. Downstream, in the SRU, poor amine quality will cause the operators to constantly fight process upsets caused by feed composition swings. PTI's design team provides complete carbon bed and particulate filtration systems for full or partial amine flows of both rich or lean amine streams.

Electric gas heaters are a great option to replace traditional steam, hot-oil, indirect and direct-fired SRU Reheaters and Tail Gas Feed Heaters.

Electric heating can provide full-duty heating for small to mid-sized SRUs and Tail Gas Units or can be used as trim heaters downstream of traditional heat exchangers.

PTI pioneered using electric heaters in small-capacity SRUs in the early 2000s. Electric heating offers a unique advantage and significant cost savings over traditional SRU designs.

The Sulfur Condenser is a critical component of every Sulfur Recovery Unit. When properly designed, a condenser forms nice large drops of liquid sulfur that easily disengage in adequately sized outlet plenums. In the real world, however, broad turndown ranges, changing feedstock, incorrectly sized tube fields, and poorly designed plenums play havoc on separating liquid sulfur from the SRU process gas. PTI's Entrained Sulfur Removal Elements - ESRE(TM) and Heated ESRE(TM) solve these problems.

Monitoring process areas for hazardous gas is nothing new to most process industries - Your Sulfur Complex is no different. Hydrogen Sulfide, Sulfur Dioxide, and combustible gases are ever-present in Sulfur Block facilities.

Detection of latent fugitive emissions, pump and equipment seals, ground concentration modeling of stack emissions, and evaluation of special hazards in analyzer shelters and unit control enclosures are just a few things we consider in the design of your area monitoring systems.

We use the maxim that "Everything wrong with your Sulfur Unit can be blamed on your Amine Unit". While all of the units in a Sulfur Facility have unique design and operating challenges, this statement often holds true.

A well-designed low-pressure Rich Amine Flash Drum can provide a cost-effective "safety net" to help prevent process upsets from wreaking havoc on your SRU. PTI's RAFD system design minimizes hydrocarbon carryover and normalizes SRU feed streams.

Acid gas burners are the heart of any SRU. Thorough mixing of air and acid gas results in short, high-intensity flames and high combustion temperatures, setting the stage for the rest of the SRU to complete its mission of maximum recovery.

PTI's SRU Burners accomplish this with a specialty-designed tangential air stream and high-velocity radial gas injection barrel. When coupled with our purge and burner management systems - PTI burners provide reliable long-term SRU operation.

Tail Gas Diverter Valves are in the most severe service of all the actuated SRU valves. On their best day, TGVs are exposed to a combination of acid gases, high temperatures, and entrained liquid sulfur. Combine this harsh service with prolonged operation in a fixed position, and many TGVs are a recipe for Failure-on-Demand. PTI has developed a unique set of performance-enhancing features to keep your TGVs ready to roll when you need them most.

PTI's engineers have over three decades of specialty safety control and burner management systems for Sulfur Recovery Units, Tail Gas Treating, Thermal Oxidizers, and Incinerators.

Like most critical elements in the Sulfur Block, process safety and burner management systems are unique. PTI's team has the expertise to apply industry standards and our unit-specific know-how to design, build, and train your operators on the specialty systems used to operate these vital units in your facility.

Process Safety and Control Systems for SRU's extend beyond just a Burner Management System (BMS). Sulfur operations require a unique integration between the Basic Process Control and the Safety Systems to prevent long-term operational problems caused by abrupt safety shutdowns. The PTI team has extensive experience with the unique requirements for the control systems in your Sulfur facility.

The PTI team has accumulated over three decades of experience on over 50 units worldwide, addressing the design challenges of molten sulfur storage, handling, and degassing.

Our team has the experience and expertise required to design reliable and efficient molten sulfur, degassing, storage, and loading facilities. Our design approach addresses the challenges of H2S fire and exposure, temperature management, and ensuring pump and piping systems are carefully heated to work with sulfur's unique viscosity characteristics.

Pilots used in SRUs, Thermal Oxidizers, and Incinerators must be designed to ignite and operate reliably in a pressurized and harsh environment, be constructed from high-temperature materials, and stand up to exposure to corrosive sulfur species.

PTI's Sulfur Pilots are premixed, natural gas, high-intensity pilots, constructed from high-alloy stainless steel that can provide 130,000 to 530,000 BTU/Hr.

PTI's Sulfur Burner Pilots are designed to light the first time, every time.