Precipitation and Particles Fouling Effects on Plate Heat Exchangers in Gas Sweetening Unit

The reason of applying heat exchanger is optimizing the usage of heat energy. There are many thermal, pressure and flow limitation for designing heat exchanger. Corrosion, fouling and viscosity have important effect upon designing factors. The plate heat exchanger (PHE) is the most usable type of exchangers. In south pars gas complex (SPGC) we apply this type of exchanger for corrosive liquid such as sour amine (MDEA). Process parameters such as flow velocity, heat flux, and particle concentration were varied over a considerable range. After some years of operation, fouling can happen on the heat transfer surface of the PHE thereby lowering the heat transfer efficiency and increasing the pressure drop. In this paper, we will describe which actions should be estimated to increase the life of plate heat exchanger and having maximums efficiency and investigate fouling effect on plate heat exchanger with a practical experience in gas sweetening unit.