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Methanol Casale starts up more IMC converters

Conference Paper · February 2007

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 METHANOL CASALE S.A. STARTS-UP
MORE IMC CONVERTERS

By
E. Filippi, M. Badano, I. Cerea

METHANOL CASALE S.A.

Lugano, Switzerland

For presentation at
NITROGEN & SYNGAS International Conference & Exhibition
Manama, Bahrain 25-28th February, 2007

Via G. Pocobelli 6
6900 Lugano
Switzerland
Tel +41.91.960.72.00
Fax +41.91.960.72.91/2
www.casale.ch
[email protected]
Abstract

METHANOL CASALE is a well-known designer of high efficiency reactors. In the Methanol

Industry it is mostly acknowledged for its ARC design for synthesis converters, which has been
widely adopted through revamping or new installations in steam reforming plants during the
nineties.

At the beginning of the new century CASALE has introduced a completely new design for
reactors, based on the heat removal from the catalyst mass by means of plate exchangers. This
new design has been applied for the first time in a methanol synthesis converter in 2002.

In 2006, two different CASALE isothermal converters have been put on stream, featuring
characteristics which are essential for the future design of high capacity, high efficiency plants.
These features are the direct steam production and the axial-radial flow in the catalyst beds.

2
1) INTRODUCTION

METHANOL CASALE is a well-established designer of high efficiency reactors. In

the Methanol Industry it is mostly known for its ARC design for synthesis converters,
which has been widely adopted through revamping or new installations in steam
reforming plants during the Nineties.

At the beginning of the new century CASALE introduced a completely new design for
reactors, based on the heat removal from the catalyst mass by means of plate
exchangers. This new design has been applied for the first time in a methanol
synthesis converter in 2002.

In 2006 CASALE started up two isothermal converters, featuring innovative

characteristics. These features are the direct steam generation and the axial-radial
flow in the catalyst beds.

2) OVERVIEW OF THE NEW DESIGNS

The use of cooling plates in synthesis converters has been already illustrated in the
past by Casale for axial, gas-cooled converter, which is now running successfully
since 2002, and whose design has already been applied in two more units.

The new designs presented in this paper are still based on the use of cooling plates
and are:

• The first steam-raising plate-cooled converter

• The first axial-radial, gas-cooled converter

These two designs are new not only for CASALE, but for the whole methanol industry
and disclose very interesting areas of development.

2.1 The Steam Raising Plate Cooled Converter

At present there are already several steam raising converters of various

configurations in service, having nevertheless one common feature: they are
tube-cooled, meaning that the cooling surface is made with tubes.

This fact represents a restriction to the overall design, leading to limitations in

the highest capacity that can be reached, and, in general, to a pretty involved
construction.

The plate-cooled converters, on the other hand, make use of cooling plates
immersed in the catalyst mass for heat removal. The boiling water is flowing
inside the plates, from the bottom to the top, and is then collected in a manifold
and exits the converter through a nozzle on the shell.

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 There is no tubesheet, therefore there is no constraint in the converter size, and
the construction is light, consisting of a normal pressure vessel containing the
catalyst bed and the plates

The plates are dimpled, obtained in an automatic production process, having a

very high quality consistency, where the manual input is minimal.

The plates are surrounded by the catalyst mass where the

process gas is flowing. The process gas flow can be axial or
axial-radial.

The advantages of the plate-cooled steam-raising design are

to overcome the traditional limitations, allowing much higher
production rates in a single converter, to introduce a new
concept in reliability and catalyst handling, and to allow a
better temperature control in the catalyst mass, increasing
the operating life of the catalyst charge.

This design has been applied for the first time in the Metafrax
plant in Gubakha, Russia, in a revamping aimed at capacity
increase. The details of the project are presented in chapter
3.

Cooling Plate

In this plant the plate cooled converter is installed on the fresh make-up gas as
a once-through unit, producing about 850 MTD of methanol and 30 to 40 t/h,
(SOR and EOR respectively), of 32 bar saturated steam.
It is a completely new converter and the performances obtained are excellent.

2.2 Axial-radial Gas Cooled Converter

Other than the water-cooled converter, there are only a few gas-cooled
converters in modern methanol plants, and they are all axial. Again the
limitation of these designs is the use of tubes to cool the catalyst mass,
preventing from the use of an axial-radial, or radial, flow in the beds.

The axial flow is in itself an important design drawback, as it limits the maximum
capacity that can be reached. This factor is important for revamping as well as
for new plants.

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 In the revamping of existing converters, when it is desired to increase the plant
capacity, and to switch from a quench-cooled design to IMC, in order to
increase the efficiency, the axial flow can create a pressure drop in the
converter that is not acceptable. The use of axial-radial flow, already very
common in ammonia plants, can solve this problem, greatly reducing the
pressure drop of a converter.

For new plants the issue is about the

maximum capacity that can be reached,
without having to go to multiple parallel
converter units, with reasonable pressure
vessel diameters. It is clear that an axial-radial
design leads to a much slimmer vessel for the
same catalyst volume, allowing to reach
capacities above 7'000 MTD in a single vessel
converter.

Axial-Radial Flow Catalyst Bed

The first axial-radial gas cooled converter is now

on stream in the AMPCO plant in Equatorial
Guinea. This design can be obtained easily with
the use of plates as cooling surface area, The flow
of cooling gas inside the plates can have the
same direction of the gas in the catalyst, that is in
a horizontal direction, co-current or counter-
current, (see figure). This arrangement allows for
an optimal temperature profile in the catalyst bed,
which further increases the converter
performances.

Axial-Radial Plate Cooled Converter

5
 The AMPCO converter has been revamped with the "in-situ" technology, i.e. re-
utilizing the pressure vessel in which new internals are installed during a
turnaround. Also this revamping has been done within a capacity increase
projects, detailed in Chapter 4.

The converter was originally a four-bed three-quenches design, and, without

modifying the pressure vessel, it has been revamped to a new configuration
featuring two axial-radial beds, each one gas cooled with plates.

3) METAFRAX REVAMPING PROJECT

METAFRAX is a Russian company owning a methanol plant in Gubakha, Russia. It is

a natural gas based plant. This plant was originally designed according to the ICI
process in the early eighties, with a nominal capacity of 2'500 MTD. It was revamped
to a capacity of 2'700 MTD in 1994 by installing the CASALE ARC internals.
Metafrax then, in 2001, decided to further increase its capacity to 3'050 MTD.

In order to obtain the higher production the main bottlenecks were:

• the reforming section

• the syngas compressor and turbine
• the synthesis loop
• the steam balance
• the distillation section

CASALE was awarded a contract first to debottleneck the synthesis loop, and then
for the reforming, while the other section were dealt with directly by METAFRAX.

The reformer revamping consisted of replacement of the rotary combustion air

preheater with a new fixed plate type, the replacement of the mixed feed coils, now
fully finned, the replacement of the boiler feed water heat exchangers, and the
addition of a purge fuel gas preheater.

The synthesis loop was revamped by adding a new once-through synthesis section
on the make-up gas.

This new section consists of the new, plate-cooled steam raising converter, followed
by a gas-gas heat exchanger preheating the gas entering the converter, an air
condenser and separator, as illustrated in the flow sheet.

6
 New Synloop Configuration

The existing synthesis loop was modified by replacing the HP separator with a new
one, while the rest was left unchanged. This solution has been selected to avoid the
need for revamping the two converters working in parallel as well as the downstream
equipment, also in parallel.
A further advantage of the new synthesis section is the production of MP steam that
is used as process steam in the reformer, and sent to the new mixed feed heater coil.

The revamping works have been carried out in two stages in 2005/06, the plant is
now successfully on stream and the test run has been completed.

The main operating data are illustrated in table 1 below:

Plant capacity MTD 3'065

Nat. Gas Consumption Gcal/MT 7.84
IMC Conv. MeOH Prod. MTD 845
IMC Conv. Steam Prod. T/h 32

7
4) THE AMPCO REVAMPING PROJECT

Atlantic Methanol Production Company L.L.C. (AMPCO) owns a methanol plant in

Equatorial Guinea, Africa.

The methanol plant was designed by different Licensors for various parts (for
instance F.W. for the primary reformer and MHI for the methanol converter).
It has a design production capacity of 2'500 MTD, while the capacity before
revamping was about 2'900 MTD.
It is a natural gas based plant, i.e. using natural gas for feed and for fuel.

AMPCO desired to increase the plant capacity up to 3'200 MTD in a first step, and to
3'400 MTD in a second step.

METHANOL CASALE was awarded a contract to increase the capacity of the

reforming section and of the synthesis converter.

The main plant characteristic and problems resulting from the existing plant operation
and constraints can be summarized as follows:

• The heat flux on primary reformer was close to the maximum.

To overcome this restriction it was decided to install a new pre-reforming section,
to be supplied by METHANOL CASALE.

• The methanol loop circulator was close to its maximum performance and the
synthesis converter also was at its maximum capacity. To overcome the synloop
limitation the synthesis converter had to be revamped with new IMC internals from
METHANOL CASALE.

The project had a tight schedule, overall of 14 months, and included modifications in
several parts of the plant.

Pre-Reforming

The pre-reforming section has been installed in order to allow a plant capacity
increase without interventions on existing primary reformer.

The reforming section modifications are highlighted in red in the following figure.

8
 Pre-Reformer Arrangement (new items in red ink)

The natural gas feed, leaving the desulfurizers, is mixed with MP steam, required to
establish the S/C ratio for the pre-reforming reaction.

The process gas is sent to the shell side of E-206, where it is heated recovering the
outlet pre-reformed gas heat.

The process gas is then fed to the pre-reformer fired heater in order to increase the
temperature up to the operating pre-reformer point.

The F-203 fired heater is a box-type heater, with overhead convection section,
provided with forced draft burner, air pre-heating exchanger and top mounted stack.

The process gas is then sent to the adiabatic axial-radial pre-reformer where the
steam reforming of higher hydrocarbons and methane takes place.
The advantages coming from the axial-radial design in the pre-reformer are the
slimmer pressure vessel, the low pressure drop, and the possibility to use small-size
catalyst, with the consequent longer operating life.

The pre-reformed gas is then sent to the E-206 exchanger tube-side where it is
cooled down through the cold inlet process gas and further cooled down through the
J-201 BFW attemperator to keep the reformed gas temperature below the primary
reformer distribution header design temperature.
The S/C ratio is then brought to the primary reformer operating value, and the gas is
then sent to the reformer mixed feed coil and to reformer catalyst tubes.

9
The pre-reformer section can be completely isolated. This arrangement allows the
catalyst replacement of the pre-reformer to be independent from the scheduled shut
down of the plant.

Methanol Synthesis

In order to revamp the synthesis loop it was necessary to increase the performance
of the existing converter. It was therefore decided to install the new CASALE plate-
cooled internals (IMC).
This design offers an higher conversion per pass, higher carbon efficiency, and,
being axial-radial, a lower pressure drop.
The catalyst volume loaded in the new internals is about 140 m3.

The new design is based on the use of plates immersed in the axial-radial catalyst
bed to remove the reaction heat while it is formed.

The use of plates for cooling, allows the design of a pseudo isothermal converter
increasing the conversion per pass and, improving the loop carbon efficiency up to
98%.

Temperature Profile in the CASALE IMC

As indicated in the figure above, the temperature profile achieved in the catalyst bed
is downward, following the line of maximum reaction rate, so obtaining the highest
possible conversion per pass from a given catalyst volume.

10
 Thanks to the new internals, it is possible to achieve the higher capacity without
alteration to the circulating compressor and without major modifications to the
synloop.

The main operating parameter are presented in the table below:

Plant Capacity MTD >3'000

Conv. Outlet P. Psig 1'400
Converter DP Psi 32

At present, since the capacity is limited by the syngas compressor, that will be
modified in the near future, the pre-reforming section has been pre-commissioned,
but is not in operation.

5) CONCLUSIONS

The two projects illustrated have been successful, as they have dramatically
improved the performances of the two existing plants where they have been
implemented. They are even more so as they include two new designs of CASALE
methanol converters.

These two new designs set very important milestones for the methanol industry, as
they make new instruments available to improve the efficiency and production
capacities of existing plants, and set new references for converters in new plants, as
their combination allows the design of very efficient methanol converters with
production capacities in a single vessel exceeding by far any previous design. In fact
a new, gas-based, plant with a capacity of 7'000 MTD has been already designed
with a single vessel converter, featuring the direct steam generation in one part and
the axial-radial, gas-cooled bed in the other.

Lugano, January 2007

Code:Paper/conf/met/meetings/Nitrogen 07/IMC Converters

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