Chinese operator starts up world’s largest wet-gas sulfuric acid plant

Bestgrand Chemicals Group Co. Ltd. has commissioned what it is calling the world’s largest wet-gas sulfuric acid (WSA) plant designed to treat over-the-fence acid gas sourced from neighboring Royal Dutch Shell PLC subsidiary Shell Nanhai BV and China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s (CNOOC) 50-50 joint venture CNOOC & Shell Petrochemicals Co. Ltd.’s (CSPC) petrochemical complex in the Daya Bay Economic & Technological Development Zone, Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China.

Equipped with Haldor Topsoe AS of Denmark’s proprietary WSA catalytic process technology and equipment, the new plant—which will treat 131,000 tonnes/year of acid gas from CSPC’s Nanhai complex to produce 300,000 tpy of commercial-grade sulfuric acid—reached startup on Feb. 19, said Haldor Topsoe, which provided technology licensing, engineering design, technical services, hardware, and performance catalysts for the project.

Bestgrand Chemical said it expects the WSA unit will help reduce the site’s emissions of carbon dioxide by 220,000 tpy and those of sulfur dioxide to a level 50% below that required by China’s regulations on its sulfuric acid industry.

The parties did not disclose a cost of the new WSA plant.

This will be Haldor Topsoe’s 54th WSA plant to come online in China since 2000, with an additional 14 plants still under construction in the country, according to the service provider.

Separately, CSPC continues to advance work on its ongoing project to build a 1.2 million-tpy ethylene cracker and associated derivatives units at the Nanhai complex, a project that is now scheduled to be fully completed in 2019, according to Shell’s latest annual report to investors (OGJ Online, Nov. 2, 2016).

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].