Patent ID: 9657247
Date: 2017-05-23
CPC Classifications: B01D,C10L

Claim:
1. A primary sour gas treatment system having a plurality of processing steps, said primary sour gas treatment system being operable for removing one or more contaminants from a supply of sour gas, said one or more contaminants including hydrogen sulfide, said primary gas treatment system comprising an absorber, a regenerator in fluid communication with said absorber, and a volume of a regenerable primary solvent cycling substantially continuously through said absorber and said regenerator, wherein said supply of sour gas enters said absorber and wherein said regenerable primary solvent in a lean state contacts at least a portion of said supply of sour gas in said absorber and either chemically or physically binds some of said hydrogen sulfide in said regenerable primary solvent thereby resulting in said regenerable primary solvent being in a rich state and a cleaned gas suitable for one of incineration, venting, flaring, and capturing for use as a fuel, and wherein said primary gas treatment system cycles said regenerable primary solvent in said rich state to said regenerator wherein said regenerator removes said hydrogen sulfide from said regenerable solvent resulting in an enriched sour gas stream suitable for one or more further processing methods and said regenerable primary solvent in said lean state that is cycled back to said absorber, said primary gas treatment system having a maximum sour gas treatment capacity, said supply of sour gas and said enriched sour gas stream having one or more chemical and material properties, said one or more chemical and material properties having one or more variances, and wherein said primary sour gas treatment system having one or more limits on the capability to treat said one or more variances of said one or more chemical and material properties, the improvement comprising: an auxiliary sour gas treatment system in fluid communication with said primary gas treatment system to treat a diverted sour gas stream during a time period when one of said processing steps or said further processing methods are one of: inoperable due to an utility outage, upset due to start-up, shut-down or malfunction of said primary gas treatment system, insufficient, out of sequence, mismatched, outside regulation limits, and incapable of treating said portion of said diverted sour gas stream due to said one or more variances of one of said chemical and said material properties exceeding said one or more limits on the capability of said primary sour gas treatment system to treat said one or more variances, wherein said diverted sour gas stream comprises one of a portion of said supply of sour gas and a portion of said enriched sour gas stream.