Verfahren und Anlagen zur Entfernung von Quecksilber aus kontaminierten Rohren und Anlagenteilen, insbesondere von mit Erdgas eingetragenem Quecksilber

摘要

The invention relates to methods and installations for eliminating mercury from natural-gas piping and natural-gas transfer installation sections for processing and transferring natural gas. The invention comprises breaking down the pipeline into pipe sections by cold cutting, lifting the cut pipe section, after each cut, into a slanting or vertical position and allowing the liquid and solid pipe contents to drain into a vessel positioned below the lower pipe end, then sealing both pipe ends with plugs and transferring the pipe to a vaporisation station, in which the pipe is filled with inert gas via short pieces of pipe in the plugs, heating the pipe filled with inert gas and in the process cracking any mercury compounds present and evaporating any mercury present, and passing the heated inert gas, which contains mercury vapour, to a condenser in which the mercury vapour-containing inert gas is cooled so far as to cause the mercury to precipitate from the inert gas.