Fuel & Flare Gas Analysis

Emerson's gas chromatographs are ideal for measuring H2S and heating value in fuel and flare gas within refinery applications. traditionally, refineries have found that their choice of analyzer involved significant maintenance and required environmental disposal considerations.

Emerson's gas chromatograph provides a simple solution for analyzing fuel and flare gas with a small, rugged thermal conductivity detector (TCD). Emerson's high-sensitivity thermal conductivity detector is simple in design, yet is powerful enough to achieve measurements in the low parts-per-million range.

By using Emerson's TCD, refineries can use a BTU measurement (also known as higher heating value, or HHV, measurement), as a distributed control system input. Knowing the BTU content of the fuel gas helps refineries to optimize the amount of pipeline-quality natural gas that is needed to maintain the BTU above minimum specifications.

Gas Processing Unit

Emerson's process gas chromatograph significantly improves the operation of a refinery gas processing unit by measuring real-time chemical composition measurements of the feed stream and sending those measurements to the plant's control system. Typical feeds streams include:

      • Crude Unit

      • Coker

      • Fluidic Catalytic Cracking Unit

      • Hydrocracker

 

The streams enter the unit where they are separated into low-value fuel gas streams, medium-value propane and butane streams and high-value gasoline and naphtha streams. Emerson's process gas chromatographs provide compositional data that assists the control system in ensuring that each component gets to the right product stream. In a refinery gas processing unit, an Emerson gas chromatograph:

                          

     • Monitors the overhead stream of the absorber deethanizer

     • Monitors the BTU and H2S content of the light gases leaving the sponge

       absorber

     • Reduces losses in the overhead stream

     • Optimizes the tower operation

 

Hydrotreater Unit

During the processing of crude oil, a hydrotreater chemically treats the various petroleum streams as they move from one unit to another in the refinery to avoid degradation and the formation of gum-like compounds. In this multi-phase process, streams of light gases are removed and sent to the appropriate refinery unit. In a refinery hydrotreater unit, an Emerson gas chromatograph:

     

     • Monitors the impurities in the hydrogen recycle stream so additional hydrogen can be

        infused within the hydrogen makeup stream as needed

     • Improves product quality by minimizing the C3 and lighter content in the finished   

       product