The Impact of Stripping Gas Flow Rate on Triethylene Glycol Losses from Glycol Regeneration Unit: Simulation Study

Abstract

Natural gas can be considered as one of the most important fossil fuels that is increasingly consumed around the world. It is an environmental friendly fuel of high heating value. However, the unrefined natural gas produced from deep reservoirs may contain some impurities including sulfur and nitrogen compounds as well as water vapour. The presence of these undesirable compounds may induce corrosion and environmental pollution, because of that it is necessary to minimize or remove those impurities from natural gas streams. Triethylene glycol (TEG) with 99 wt.% is typically utilized to reduce the water vapor contact to less than 1 ppm. Indeed, glycol purities up to 99.9 wt% can be achieved by using stripping gases include Nitrogen. However, glycol losses is behind some technical problems in the dehydration process. The research is aimed at simulation the prospective gas dehydration process using Aspen HYSYS simulator. The effect of Nitrogen stripping rate on TEG losses from glycol regenerator tower, TEG lean wt.%, and water content in natural dry gas were investigated and correlated. The design of the dehydration system was simulated adequately to achieve a reduction in natural gas water content to less than 0.1 ppm.