Investigação da fegeneração de Trietilenoglicol no processo de desidratação de gás natural

Abstract

One of the critical steps in natural gas processing is the removal of the water content produced as water vapor in equilibrium with the natural gas effluent. This process is generally called by dehydration of natural gas and aims to prevent corrosion of pipes, formation of hydrates or condensation on the walls of the pipes during transport. Water absorption using liquid glycol, or TEG is the most commonly used dehydration method. In this process, the liquid is regenerated and recycled to reduce water usage and reduce costs. Three methods to investigate the TEG regeneration were studied using the Aspen HYSYS simulator, namely, a) the use of a portion of dry gas as extraction gas (from components contained in the mixture with TEG), b) i-butane as stripping gas (tested in this work as stripping gas) and c) flash separator gas as extraction gas (tested in this work as extraction gas). The simulation results show that the use of a portion of dry gas as extraction gas made it possible to reduce the water content of 966.7 mg/Nm3 to 15 mg/Nm3; TEG purity recovery was 99.81% at a concentration optimum extraction gas of 472.1 kg/h, while i-butane can reduce water content by up to 20 mg/Nm3 and TEG recovery up to 99.61 wt% at an optimum gas concentration of extraction of 933.1 kg/h. The flash separator gas was the least efficient in removing the contents of water, this can reduce by up to 67.94 mg/Nm3 and with TEG recovery of up to 98.62% in a drop pressure of 300 kPa. The optimum circulation concentration of TEG is 4,000 kg/h and the temperature optimum boiling point of 204 oC. Finally, we found that using extraction gas is a more effective technique for improving the purity of TEG and the overall performance of the natural gas dehydration plant.(TRADUÇAO NOSSA)