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The optimal engineering design for natural gas dehydration process by TEG
Associate professor Dr. Fadi Z. Hanna Chemical Engineering Department Koya University, Kurdistan Region-Iraq Mr. RibwarKermanjAbdulrahman Chemical Engineering Department Koya University, Kurdistan Region-Iraq
Abstract Natural gas may consider one of the most popular fossil fuel in recent era. Natural gas has several advantages over other fossil fuel types for instance, environmental friendly, high heating value & cheap price. Natural gas is producesfrom underground reservoirs so it couldcontentsseveral of non-hydrocarbon components for example, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen and water vapor. These impurities are undesirable compounds and cause several technical problems for instance, corrosion and environment pollution. Therefore, these components should be reduce or removed from natural gas stream. Indeed, water vapor in natural gas cause several technical problems for example, pipelines corrosion, reduce the heating value of natural gas & hydrate formation. Therefore, wet natural gas should be dried by adopting one of engineering methods for instance, chemical absorption & adsorption method. In fact, chemical absorption method by glycol may consider the most successful & economical method to remove water vapor from raw natural gas. Absorption method is consisted from several industrial units for instance, absorption tower, regenerator tower & pumps. The accurate engineering design for this process is quite important to produce a dry natural gas that meets standard gas specifications & contracts and it is depended on several factors&engineering calculations for instance, glycol circulation rate, heat exchanger duties & contactor diameter. Therefore, this study is aimed to describe & show the most optimal engineering design procedure for this process & it is calculated the most obvious process parameters for example, glycol contactor diameter, heat exchanger duties & glycol circulation rate. Key words: Natural gasprocessing, process design, gas dehydration, glycol contactor.
I.
Introduction
Natural gas may consider the most popular fossil fuel in recent era as well as the future. Natural gas poses a huge rule in the recent world economy and development. However, natural gas is producesfrom deep underground reservoir under certain temperature and pressure. Therefore, it contentsmany of impurities for example, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen and water vapour. In order to meet gas pipelinesspecifications, raw natural gas should be treated to either remove or reduce these impurities for example, H2S must be reduced to less than 4ppm (Stewart & Arnold, 2011). Indeed, almost hydrocarbon reservoirs around the world produce wet natural gas which contents various amounts of water.Free water could be removed at wellhead by separator equipment. However, water vapour is still associated with the natural gas. Indeed, water vapour in natural gas should be reduced or removed and the main reasons for removing of water from naturalcould be summarized as following: Water content of natural gas decreases ofits heat value, liquid water in natural gas pipelines potentially causes slugging flow conditions resulting in lower flow efficiency of the pipelines (Stewart & Arnold, 2011). In most commercial hydrocarbon processes,
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Fig. (1) Flow diagram of a typical glycol dehydrator process (Guo, 2011).
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II.
The optimal TEG dehydration process should include the following: contactor diameter, glycol circulation rate, reboiler duty, sizes the still column, heat duties for gas/glycol exchanger and glycol/glycol exchangers. 1. Calculate contactor diameter: = 5040
.
dM=125 microns (range 120150 microns) (Stewart & Arnold,2011). T=570R, P=1015 psia, Qg=98 MMSCFD, Tr =570/376=1.49, Pr =1015, Z= 0.865 = 0.67 1015 560 0.865
.
560 0.68 98 3.72 0.852 (70 3.79) 125 1015 =68.2 in, Use 7200ID contactor (Stewart & Arnold, 2011)
2. Determine glycol circulation rate and reboiler duty: Wi = 63 lb/MMSCF (from McKetta-Wehe)( Stewart& Arnold, 2011) W0=7 lb/MMSCF (spec), DW=Wi -W0=63-7=56 lb/MMSCF DW/Wi = 56/63= 0.889 Using n= 2 (i.e., 8 actual trays) and glycol purity of 98.5% read theglycolcirculation rate of 2.8 gal TEG/lb H20. Use 3.0 gal/lb for design( Stewart& Arnold, 2011). 2.0 56 98 = 24 60 = 11.4 gpm TEG, 862 Btu/ gal 862 11.4 60 = = 590Mbtu/hr To allow for start-up heat loads, increase heat duty by10% and then select a standard off-the-shelf fire tube (Stewart & Arnold, 2011).Thus, select a 750 MMBtu/hr
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=6401 lb/hr
= 249
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III.
The process design procedure is focused on the most critical & important parts of the glycol dehydration process for example, glycol contactor tower diameter, heat exchanger duties and TEG circulation rate. Indeed, glycol circulation rate is the most important factor for glycol dehydration design. Many scholars &researchers indicated that the TEG circulation rate is contributed in drying process efficiency. The glycolcirculation rate is calculated by engineering mathematical equations and its equal to 11.4 gpm. This value is able to reduce the water vapor in gas stream to less than 7 lb/MMSCF. Glycol contactor tower diameter is also calculated by adopting engineering mathematical equations and its equal to 68.2 in or 1.7 m. This value is definitely comfortable with engineering design considerations and standards. The lean/rich TEG heat exchanger is also design and the design procedure found out almost operation values for instance, RichT1= 200F.
IV.
Conclusion
This study is attempted to show & describe the optimal design procedure for natural gas dehydration by using chemical absorption. The studyis achieved process design calculations for several process parametersfor instance, glycol contactor tower diameter,TEG circulation rate & heat exchanger duties. It seems that from above theoretical calculations, the using of chemical absorption method to dehydrate wet natural gas is quite suitable by adopting the engineering procedure design to calculate & estimate the most important process factors and values. Moreover, it seems that from the literature review section, the gas dehydration by using chemical absorption is the most successful & economical method over other methods.
References
1- Guo, B.(2011)Petroleum Production Engineering, a Computer-Assisted Approach. Tulsa: Gulf Professional Publishing. 2- M. Stewart, and K. Arnold, Gas Sweetening and Processing Field Manual. Houston: Gulf Professional Publishing, 2011, pp.5152. 3- M. Stewart, and K. Arnold, Gas dehydration Field Manual. Houston: Gulf Professional Publishing, 2011, pp. 4077. 4- K. Abdel-Aal, Petroleum and Gas Field Processing. New York: CRC Press, 2003, pp. 90110. 5- R. Thompson, Oilfield processing of petroleum. Tulsa: Penn WellBooks, 1991, pp. 5157. 6- J. Carroll, Natural Gas Hydrates. Oxford: Gulf Professional Publishing, 2009, pp. 32-33.
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