Dehydration is important in three areas:

Gas gathering

Product dehydration:
Maximum water in sales gas at 4 to 7 lb/MMscf
For liquids, the water content is 10 to 20 ppmw

Hydrocarbon recovery

Water content is stated in a number of ways:

Mass of water per volume of gas, lb/MMscf
Concentration, parts per million by volume
(ppmv)

In any mixture, where both the gas and liquid
phases are in equilibrium, each component, i,
in the mixture obeys the relationship


Calculate the water content of the sweet
natural gas shown in Table 6.1at 300 psia and
80F


The MW of the gas mixture is 18.41
Specific gravity : Sp. Gr.= 18.41/28.96 = 0.636

Two processes, absorption and adsorption, are the most common

ABSORPTION PROCESSES:
Water levels in natural gas can be reduced to the 10 pmmv range in a physical
absorption process.

The solvent used for the absorption should have the following properties:

A high affinity for water and a low affinity for hydrocarbons

A low volatility at the absorption temperature to reduce vaporization
Losses

A low viscosity for ease of pumping and good contact between the gas and liquid
phases

A low potential for corrosion
The two types of adsorption are physical adsorption and
chemisorption.

In physical adsorption, the bonding between the adsorbed
species and the solid phase is called van der Waals forces.

Physical adsorption is an equilibrium process like
vaporliquid equilibria

Two steps are involved in adsorbing a trace gas
component.

The first step is to have the component contact the surface
The second step is to have it travel through the pathways
inside the adsorbent

When used as a purification process,
adsorption has two major disadvantages:

o It is a fixed-bed process that requires two or
more adsorption beds for continuous
operation.
o It has limited capacity and is usually
impractical for removing large amounts of
impurity.
Three types of commercial adsorbents are in
common use in gas processing plants:

Silica gel, which is made of pure SiO2

Activated alumina, which is made of Al2O3

Molecular sieves
To minimize MTZ thickness, the bed diameter
should be kept small.

This feature also reduces the wall thickness
of the high-pressure vessels and increases
the superficial velocity, which improves mass
transfer in the gas phase.
An existing 4A molecular sieve bed has been
processing 80 MMscfd on a 12-hour cycle with two
beds. Exit gas goes to a cryogenic turboexpander
section. Gas flow is increased to 100 Mscfd.
Estimate the increased pressure drop and
determine whether the bed capacity allows
continued operation on a 12-hour cycle or the
cycle time should be changed. The gas enters the
bed at 120F and 950 psig. Water content is 60% of
saturation at 120F. The molar mass of the gas is
18.5, with a viscosity of 0.014 cP and a
compressibility factor of 0.84. The adsorption bed
contains 41,000 lbs of 1/8-inch diameter beads
with a bulk density of 44 lb/ft3. The inside wall
diameter of the bed is 7.5 ft. The absorbent was
installed 2 years ago.
Desiccant Processes:

Can reduce the water content down to 20 ppmv

Membrane Processes
Refrigeration Processes
Twister Technology
Vortex Tube Technology