Rustam Otarov
201031264
Internship at LLP Stepnogorsk Sulfuric Acid Plant Kazatomprom
FINAL REPORT
1.1. Structures of the company and department in which the student performed the
internship;
The place of internship was LLP SP SZK Kazatomprom. It is a subsidiary part of National Atomic
Company Kazatomprom. Currently, the plant is under construction, but under simultaneous
commissioning. As internees, we were attached to operational processes department, but since
the plant has not started yet, we were put into more flexible position, than it could be expected
we could get access to any part or department of the plant.
1.2.
The main business of the company, goods and /or services produced by the company;
The main business of the company is to produce sulfuric acid from pure sulfur delivered directly
to plant from the oil deposit from LLP Tengizchevroil. The final product is planned to be sold to
other subsidiaries of Kazatomprom. Main part of produced sulfuric acid is reserved for extraction
and recovery of uranium. Another portion will be distributed between other plants in
Stepnogorsk.
1.3.
Equipment and technologies used by the company;
The essence of production of sulfuric acid is technology based on double absorption process. This
is type of process, which is newer than that was used on the old plant. Commonly used name is
Contact process. The technology involves melting of sulfur (to sulfur dioxide), purification,
catalytic oxidation (to sulfur trioxide), conversion to OLEUM and dilution.
The equipment is brought from abroad or manufactured here in Kazakhstan by Desmet Ballestra.
1.4.
A description of the activities performed by the student in the company;
1) Field trips
Numerous field trips over the plant to explain in the details how sulfuric acid is manufactured, as
well as important engineering issues. Field trips were conducted by head of operational
processes and by visiting head of inorganic division of United Chemical Company.
2) Safety practices
Proper safety practices are extremely important while being on plant. Studying of safety rules
and doing pop quizzes.
3) Study of documentation (P&ID)
This is the main part of internship. The documentation includes general manual with process and
instrumentation diagrams. The P&ID are essential part of any plant, so proper practice of reading
P&ID is necessary experience.
4) Commissioning at glance
With the arrival of head of inorganic division of United Chemical Company additional field trip
was done. During this field trip, we have gone through commissioning process at glance. We
were able to observe commissioning process for welding (x-ray, air propulsion, ultra-sonic test,
hydrostatic test and visual test). In addition, another part of commissioning was dealing with
arising problems. Moreover, here, we received personal opinion of the head of inorganic division
on management issues. It appears that, on most objects he works, there are numerous problems
with contractors and local administration (slow response and late submission of the
services/goods). The problem appears to be quite systematic in nature and requires
development of new framework.
5) Find possible ways to improve the plant
This point comes from point 3 and 4, but it should be paid separate attention. We were given a
task on which we spent most of our time there. The task was to propose ways to improve plant
based on our experience (academic or industrial).
1.5.
A discussion of specific business / engineering issues related to the internship;
First, the Contact process used for manufacturing sulfuric acid used on the plant has only one
difference with the standard one it uses double absorption. Other components and sequence
are the same: Air and sulfur are delivered to melting bath (furnace) from storage rooms and the
first interim product is sulfur dioxide. Then, the first interim product with air goes through
converter and the second interim product is sulfur trioxide. The catalyst of this reaction is
vanadium (oxidized one). After, the second interim product is converted to OLEUM by mixing
sulfur trioxide with stored sulfuric acid in absorber. Only after that, the OLEUM is mixed with
water to obtain sulfuric acid. This is tricky part. The reason behind this is that the reaction with
OLEUM easier to control and it generates less heat comparing to sulfuric acid.
At all steps, the conversion from initial to interim products involves great amount of heat
released proper design of process units and heat exchangers is required. That excess heat
converts pure demineralized water to steam. There is 31 tons of steam in one complete cycle. 25
tons are recycled and 6 tons are discharged to atmosphere directly. These 6 tons are used to
extract undesirable vapors from melting bath. Because all water used in complete cycle
(absorbers, converters, boilers, turbines) must be entirely pure (demineralized by reverse
osmosis water tower) they prefer to discharge 6 tons of vapor to avoid risks of corrosion and
other type of damage to equipment.
In addition, 25 tons of vapor converted to a water by a means of turbine, which will generate
electricity for the needs of the plant, and excess will be sent to network. In general, that part
sounds great, but taking into account that there is CHP nearby; the idea of generating electricity
brings some more challenges, which were not considered in the master design. The point is that
initial design of electrical grid was done in SIMO on local level (single input, multiple output), but
with the addition of turbine from sulfuric acid plant there will be disturbance. Actually, the
problem is for all networks of post-soviet countries, since there was no consideration of
distributed power generation, so it was not necessary to develop a system with scheduling and
forecasting for production of power. The steam turbine brings new challenges into Kazakhstans
system, as it was done in European countries in these two decades. Therefore, there is a need for
proper forecasting of consumption of power from the third party, which will take into account
the availability of resources. The sad part is that it is possible to avoid forecasting, since there is
only two inputs and that means it is not feasible to develop new framework by engineers from
CHP and sulfuric acid plant. Instead, the government must take the lead.
Another issue is the heat. Significant amount of heat is recovered using heat exchangers and
economizers, but there is still a need to do proper analysis. It is better to use pinch tools to
determine how much heat is possible to recover using heat exchangers and heat pumps. Still, it
would be waste of time to conduct pinch analysis on the plant under construction, since it is
necessary to have specific data for different seasons.
In addition, there is an issue with wastes. There is no proper way to dispose wastes coming from
different step of production of sulfuric acid. Mainly, it is chalk bed mixed with molten sulfur
(used as a filter) and sulfur taken by a vapor or any other fluid, it accidentally got in contact. The
project plans to send all wastes to burial.
References:
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