Operational performance comparison of the fixed and fluidized beds in the used amines recovery process by ion exchange resin

In the gas sweetening process with amine solution, the amine reacts with acids in the sour gas, anticorrosions, and sour water, producing heat-s table salts. The heat-s table salts in the amine can increase corrosion and amine loss, produce foam, increase operational cos t, and decrease sweetening capacity. Removing the s table salts with different methods is necessary to decrease their negative effects on the process. One of these methods is salt adsorption with ion exchange resins. This method has two main s teps. The firs t s tep is salt adsorption with ion exchange resin and the second s tep is resin regeneration by caus tic solution and then washing the resin bed with indus trial water. The adsorption and regeneration processes happen in a bed that can be fixed or fluidized. In this s tudy, the fixed and fluidized bed performances are experimentally compared for the regeneration and washing s teps of the resin bed which is located in the desalination and chlorination unit of Khangiran gas refinery. The results show that using a fluidized bed for the regeneration s tep has positive effects on the operational parameters of the process. As a result of this change, indus trial water consumption and was tewater production decreased by 28% and resin loss decreased by 20%. The bed pressure drop also decreases from 7 psi to 2 psi. In addition, annual repair and maintenance cos ts are expected to decrease by 66%. The other positive effect of using the fluidized bed ins tead of the fixed bed is the bed channelization reduction which can increase the process performance significantly.