8/1/2017 Glycol dehydration - Wikipedia

Glycol dehydration
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Glycol dehydration is a liquid desiccant system for the removal of water from natural gas and natural gas liquids
(NGL). It is the most common and economical means of water removal from these streams.[1] Glycols typically
seen in industry include triethylene glycol (TEG), diethylene glycol (DEG), ethylene glycol (MEG), and
tetraethylene glycol (TREG). TEG is the most commonly used glycol in industry.[1]

Contents
1 Purpose
2 Process description
3 Enhanced Stripping Methods
4 References
5 External links

Purpose
The purpose of a glycol dehydration unit is to remove water from natural gas and natural gas liquids. When
produced from a reservoir, natural gas usually contains a large amount of water and is typically completely
saturated or at the water dew point. This water can cause several problems for downstream processes and
equipment. At low temperatures the water can either freeze in piping or, as is more commonly the case, form
hydrates with CO2 and hydrocarbons (mainly methane hydrates). Depending on composition, these hydrates can
form at relatively high temperatures plugging equipment and piping.[1] Glycol dehydration units depress the
hydrate formation point of the gas through water removal.

Without dehydration, a free water phase (liquid water) could also drop out of the natural gas as it is either cooled or
the pressure is lowered through equipment and piping. This free water phase will often contain some portions of
acid gas (such as H2S and CO2) and can cause corrosion.[1]

For the above two reasons the Gas Processors Association sets out a pipeline quality specification for gas that the
water content should not exceed 7 pounds per million standard cubic feet .[1] Glycol dehydration units must
typically meet this specification at a minimum, although further removal may be required if additional hydrate
formation temperature depression is required, such as upstream of a cryogenic process or gas plant.

Process description
Lean, water-free glycol (purity >99%) is fed to the top of an absorber (also known as a "glycol contactor") where it
is contacted with the wet natural gas stream. The glycol removes water from the natural gas by physical absorption
and is carried out the bottom of the column. Upon exiting the absorber the glycol stream is often referred to as
"rich glycol". The dry natural gas leaves the top of the absorption column and is fed either to a pipeline system or
to a gas plant. Glycol absorbers can be either tray columns or packed columns.

After leaving the absorber, the rich glycol is fed to a flash vessel where hydrocarbon vapors are removed and any
liquid hydrocarbons are skimmed from the glycol. This step is necessary as the absorber is typically operated at
high pressure and the pressure must be reduced before the regeneration step. Due to the composition of the rich
glycol, a vapor phase having a high hydrocarbon content will form when the pressure is lowered.
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After leaving
the flash
vessel, the rich
glycol is heated
in a cross-
exchanger and
fed to the
stripper (also
known as a
regenerator).
The glycol
stripper
consists of a
column, an
overhead
condenser, and
a reboiler. The
glycol is
thermally
regenerated to
remove excess
water and
regain the high An example process flow diagram for this system
glycol purity.

The hot, lean glycol is cooled by cross-exchange with rich glycol entering the stripper. It is then fed to a lean pump
where its pressure is elevated to that of the glycol absorber. The lean solvent is cooled again with a trim cooler
before being fed back into the absorber. This trim cooler can either be a cross-exchanger with the dry gas leaving
the absorber or an air-cooled exchanger.

Enhanced Stripping Methods

Most glycol units are fairly uniform except for the regeneration step. Several methods are used to enhance the
stripping of the glycol to higher purities (higher purities are required for dryer gas out of the absorber). Since the
reboiler temperature is limited to 400F or less to prevent thermal degradation of the glycol, almost all of the
enhanced systems center on lowering the partial pressure of water in the system to increase stripping.

Common enhanced methods include the use of stripping gas, the use of a vacuum system (lowering the entire
stripper pressure), the DRIZO process, which is similar to the use of stripping gas but uses a recoverable
hydrocarbon solvent, and the Coldfinger process where the vapors in the reboiler are partially condensed and
drawn out separately from the bulk liquid.

References
1. Gas Processors Suppliers Association (GPSA) Handbook (Tenth ed.).

External links
Gas Processors Suppliers Association Website (http://gpsa.gasprocessors.com)
Dehydration using Glycol on the SPE Petrowiki (http://petrowiki.org/Dehydration_with_glycol)
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Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency regarding natural gas dehydration best-practices (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20141006051000/http://www.epa.gov:80/oaqps001/community/details/oil-gas.html)
Practical oil-field oriented description of Glycol Dehydration including Operating problems and Glycol care
(http://articles.compressionjobs.com/articles/oilfield-101/1454-dehydration-adsorption-glycol-reflux-reboiler
-foaming)

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This page was last edited on 13 January 2017, at 08:07.

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