Sustainable, proven solutions designed to enhance operations and increase the amine capacity

Amine units support the overall profitability of a refinery, even though they do not directly produce a revenue-generating product. Since the individual components of the amine system are typically distributed across different areas of the plant, overseeing and controlling the entire process is challenging and requires coordinated management.

Despite variations in the configuration, requirements, and operation of nearly every amine system within a refinery, a unified strategy can be applied to enhance their operation and efficiency. Key elements for boosting amine system performance include:

• Defining the optimal operating conditions, or “best practices", tailored to the specific refinery and amine unit configurations as well as acid gas removal requirements.
• Implementing an amine management program to evaluate current system condition and identify opportunities for improving both operations and amine quality
• Identifying and implementing necessary mechanical, operational, or chemical modifications that can significantly improve system performance.
• Minimizing heat stable amine salts (HSAS) and maintaining operation within a safe and dependable range to protect assets effectively.
• Selecting the appropriate solvent to consistently meet critical operational parameters.
• Utilizing digital monitoring to track amine concentration continuously.

Max-Amine solvents & chemicals

Max-Amine is a comprehensive solution comprising solvents, chemicals, process engineering, analysis, and maintenance services designed by Veolia to:

• improve the efficiency of the amine unit,
• reduce energy and chemical consumption,
• reduce corrosion, foaming, and fouling,
• extend the life of the amine solvent,
• and increase the efficiency of H₂S/CO₂ separation.
  
  

Max-Amine will provide you with the following benefits:

• Reduced costs, 
• Extended time between maintenance,
• Improved quality of purified gas,
• Reduced environmental impact (less waste, lower steam and energy consumption).
  
  

The implementation of the Total Amine Solutions strategy has brought a return on investment (ROI) of over 400% to a refinery in Southern Europe.

ELECTRODIALYSIS (ED)

Electrodialysis is a technology in which ions dissolved in water move through selective ion exchange membranes under the influence of an electric voltage. 

In amine units, electrodialysis allows for continuous regeneration of amine solutions, removing contaminants such as salt ions and other undesirable amine degradation products that are formed during operation. This ensures that the amine solution remains highly effective and operating costs are significantly reduced.

Benefits of using electrodialysis in amine units:

• Increased service life of amine solutions – the elimination of salts and degradation products extends the service life of the solution.
• Financial savings – reduction in the cost of purchasing new amines and reduction in plant downtime associated with solution replacement.
• Improved process efficiency – maintaining stable amine solution parameters translates into better gas purification quality.
• Reduced environmental impact – reduction of wastewater and salt emissions into the environment.
• Process optimization – the ability to precisely adjust operating parameters (e.g., desalination rate) to the requirements of the installation.
• Automated, modular systems – operating in continuous or batch mode, easy to expand and integrate with existing infrastructure.
• The reclaiming mobile unit has wide applicability and can be successfully used for different types of amine solvents, including MDEA, MEA, DEA, DIPA and formulated solvents.

Veolia's electrodialysis (ED) technology offers a number of advantages: with stable operation and no cleaning required, a dedicated or mobile ED unit can run continuously for several days or weeks, and the waste stream produced is a neutral salt solution. 

The use of an electrodialysis (ED) unit at a refinery in Europe resulted in the cost of recovering the amine solution being less than 30% of the cost of its complete replacement, without taking into account the costs of disposing of the contaminated amine.
As a result, the total savings achieved by the refinery exceeded $400,000.

Veolia offers a range of modern solutions and services tailored to the specific needs of refineries and amine units, guaranteeing their reliability and efficiency.