The plant has a production capacity of 300 000 tpy of sulfuric acid, and is the world’s largest such facility. It will treat 131 000 t of acid gas over-the-fence per year from the neighbouring world scale refinery plant operated by a joint venture (JV) between China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) and Shell in Huizhou City, China.
Bestgrand Chemical Group claims that it focused on the environmental benefits from using WSA to capture gaseous sulfur and convert it into commercial grade sulfuric acid. It has also been a deciding factor that both the energy efficiency and the heat recovery of the process are very high. The company predicts that it will decrease CO2 emissions by 220 000 tpy and SO2 emissions to a level that is 50% lower than that required by the sulfuric acid industry.
Frank Lei, Senior Sales Director, Topsoe in China, said: “Haldor Topsoe is proud to be awarded the license, engineering design, tech service, and hardware and catalyst contract for the world’s largest WSA plant by Bestgrand Chemical Group. The successful startup is a milestone for the WSA technology both in China and globally, and it proves that this technology has an important role to play in reducing harmful sulfur emissions in a commercially sound way.”
Since 2000, Topsoe has sold a total of 68 WSA plants in China. 54 of these are now on stream, with the remaining 14 under construction.
WSA is a patented Topsoe technology, including proprietary equipment and performance catalysts, that removes sulfur from off-gas streams in the refining industry, chemical production from coal, and steel production. WSA converts the sulfurous gases into concentrated sulfuric acid, which is re-used in production or sold as a commercial product.