Development of novel techno-economic framework

for enhancing a Tri-Ethylene Glycol-based natural

gas dehydration unit

Zong Yang Kong

B. Eng. (Chemical) (Honours), PMP
Swinburne University of Technology

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Research Centre for Sustainable Technologies

Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science
Swinburne University of Technology

August 2021
 Abstract

Tri-Ethylene Glycol purity limit in conventional absorption-based natural gas dehydration

process has led to substantial amount of water remains present in the supposedly dry product
gas. Several alternative processes have been devised to address this limitation, which include
stripping gas dehydration process using either a portion of the dry product gas, inert gas, or
volatile hydrocarbon (DRIZO process). To date, several techno-economic analyses have been
performed on these different processes to evaluate their dehydration process performance.
However, all of these techno-economic analyses focus on capital and operational cost
comparison between the different processes. None of the existing studies had taken into
consideration the net profit assessment (i.e., the difference between gross profit and total cost
of production). Since a portion of sale gas was consumed as stripping gas, less dry product gas
becomes available for sale and this will likely reduce the gross profit of such enhanced process.
Therefore, this thesis attempts to fill the gap in the existing studies by developing a techno-
economic framework that takes into consideration the net profit assessment to examine the
dehydration process performance. Such techno-economic framework will ease the selection of
the best dehydration process that simultaneously meets the water dew point specification and
generates the highest net profit margin.

This thesis explores the limitation of the existing techno-economic analyses on natural gas
dehydration via absorption using TEG as follows:
1. A review on the alternative methods available to enhance TEG regeneration
performance. The review covered each individual method’s mechanism, process flow
diagram, advantages, drawbacks, and summarises the relevant works from 1991 to 2021.
The existing gaps in these works were highlighted as recommendation for future work.
2. An optimum TEG flowrate that provides minimum water content in the dry product gas
with the minimum TEG loss rate and minimum BTEX emission was obtained through
a parametric study performed on the conventional dehydration process via absorption
using TEG. Using the best TEG flowrate, different recycling configurations were
applied to the conventional dehydration process to minimise the TEG loss rate and the
BTEX emission. However, it was revealed that all the different recycling configurations
do not contribute towards significant process improvement where the TEG loss rate is
only reduced by up to 0.4% in all the three configurations and the reduction in water

ii
 content is always traded-off by the increase in the total BTEX emission.
3. A techno-economic framework that takes into consideration the net profit assessment
was developed to compare the stripping gas dehydration processes that consume a
portion of sale gas and external injected nitrogen gas as stripping gas with that of the
conventional dehydration process. It was found that the stripping gas dehydration
process using a portion of sale gas as stripping gas generates the highest net profit
margin relative to the other dehydration processes, while able to achieve the maximum
water dew point requirement set by the local authority for pipeline transported natural
gas in Malaysia. The minimum water dew point requirement, on the other hand, can be
easily achieved by all the three dehydration processes.
4. The developed techno-economic framework was further extended to evaluate the
performance of the stripping gas dehydration process using VOC gases (i.e., the DRIZO
process). Three different DRIZO configurations were additionally investigated that
utilise the regenerator overhead, the flash vapour, and both regenerator overhead and
flash vapour, as stripping gas. The best dehydration process was found to be the
configuration that consumed both regenerator overhead and flash vapour as stripping
gas and such configuration is used as a representative case for subsequent comparison
against other dehydration processes earlier. Overall, it was concluded that DRIZO
process provides the best purity on regenerated TEG up to 99.77% with minimum TEG
loss rate and minimum VOC emission. It also generates the highest gross profit margin
since there is no profit loss associated with the DRIZO process. However, DRIZO
process generates a lower net profit margin relative to other dehydration processes,
mainly because of the high capital expenditure and the associated operating cost.

Using the developed novel techno-economic framework with systematic analyses, this thesis
provides various new insights to evaluate the different dehydration processes for natural gas
dehydration process via absorption using TEG, with the consideration of net profit assessment.
The best dehydration can be selected based on the developed framework and it was revealed
that the stripping gas dehydration process that consumes a portion of dry product gas is the
most attractive option relative to the other dehydration processes because it can achieve the
desired water dew point specification while generating the highest net profit margin.

iii
 Acknowledgements

This 4-year long journey has been tough and challenging, having to balance between a full-
time work and research. There are many people whom I wish to acknowledge for their help,
input, advice, and friendship, without which the project would not be possible.

To Assoc. Prof. Jaka Sunarso

Thank you for being a remarkable mentor. You have provided me with a lot of patience
throughout my doctorate journey, especially in the early days. I will not forget the time, energy,
and efforts you have spent over the weekends to help me enhance my essential research skills
such as writing manuscripts. Thank you for also continuously providing constructive feedback
to help me to grow as a researcher. Your guidance and encouragement throughout the 4 years’
journey was vigorous for the completion of my doctorate. I am sorry if I have failed you along
the journey. Words cannot express how grateful I am to have you as my supervisor.

To Dr. Mahmoud Elhadi

Thank you for introducing me with the concept of natural gas dehydration and provided me
with many ideas as I progress throughout my doctorate journey. Your feedback was valuable
without which I would not have progressed this far. Thank you for spending your valuable time
on weekends to guide me on my research project and for proofreading my draft manuscript.

To staff of Swinburne University of Technology

Thank you for your contributions and support, both directly and indirectly, throughout this
journey. I appreciate the support from the administrative staff from the Faculty of Engineering,
Computing and Science and those from the Research Centre for Sustainable Technologies.
Special thanks to Assoc. Prof. Basil T. Wong, and Assoc. Prof. Aimin Yu for enabling this
research project.

To my family, love, and friends

Thank you for your unconditional love and support.
 Declaration

I declare that the thesis is my own work and it has not been accepted for the award of any other
degree or professional qualification in any university or equivalent institution. To the best of
my knowledge, this thesis does not contain any material that has been previously published or
written by any other person except where due reference is made. The individual contributions
of respective authors for the joint research based work or publications are duly acknowledged.
I confirmed that I have obtained relevant permission, where necessary, from the copyright
owners to use any third party copyright material reproduced in the thesis (such as artwork,
images, unpublished documents), or to use any of my own published work (such as journal
articles) in which the copyright is held by another party (such as publisher, co-author).

______
______________________
Zong Y
Yang Kong
2nd August 2021

v
 Table of Contents

Page
Abstract ii
Acknowledgement iv
Declaration v
Table of Contents vi
List of Incorporated Publications vii
Chapter 1. Introduction 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Research Question 4
1.3 Scope and Key Research Objectives 5
1.4 Thesis structure 5
Chapter 2. Literature review 7
Chapter 3. Parametric study of different recycling configurations on conventional natural
gas dehydration process 30
Chapter 4. Development of techno-economic framework 54
Chapter 5. Extension of the developed techno-economic framework 80
Chapter 6. Conclusion and Recommendations 99
6.1 Conclusion 99
6.2 Recommendations for Future Work 103
References 106
Appendix. Signed Authorship Indication Forms 109

vi
 List of Incorporated Publications

The following journal publications are incorporated as parts of this thesis:

1. Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2018. Revamping existing glycol
technologies in natural gas dehydration to improve the purity and absorption efficiencyௗ:
Available methods and recent developments. J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 56, 486–503.
doi:10.1016/j.jngse.2018.06.008
2. Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2018. A parametric study of different
recycling configurations for the natural gas dehydration process via absorption using
triethylene glycol. Process Integr Optim Sustain. 1. doi:10.1007/s41660-018-0058-x
3. Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2019. Development of a techno-economic
framework for natural gas dehydration via absorption using tri-ethylene glycolௗ: A
comparative study on conventional and stripping gas dehydration processes. J. Chem.
Technol. Biotechnol, 94, 955–963. doi:10.1002/jctb.5844
4. Kong, Z.Y., Wee, X.J.M., Ahmed, M., Yu, A., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2020, Development of
a techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration via absorption using tri-ethylene
glycol: A comparative study between DRIZO and other dehydration processes. S. Afr. J.
Chem. Eng. 31, 17-24. doi:10.1016/j.sajce.2019.11.001

vii
Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Background
Natural gas is an important fossil fuel stock, which has been widely used today for residential,
commercial, and industrial applications. It is also an essential energy source that accounts for
approximately 23.8% of the world primary energy consumption. The importance of this energy
source has increased tremendously over the past decades, as reflected by the increase in natural
gas production by almost 500% for the past 15 years in the Chinese energy market (Ani et al.
2021). In parallel with the growing international demands, Malaysia's natural gas production has
also risen over the past 2 decades. As of 2019, Malaysia is the 2nd largest oil and natural gas
producer in Southeast Asia and is the 5th largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the
world (EIA, 2021). Malaysia also has the 4th largest natural gas reserves in the Asia-Pacific region,
with reserves of 3.6 billion barrels as of January 2020. More than half of these reserves are located
in the eastern areas, predominantly offshore Sarawak whereas the rest are located at the main
storage facilities of Petronas Gas Berhad at Kertih, Terengganu and Bintulu liquefied natural gas
(LNG) tanker, Sarawak.

The raw natural gas that is obtained from the reservoir is commonly known as “wet gas”, which
consists of a mixture of hydrocarbons, i.e., mainly methane, other hydrocarbons than methane, and
other impurities such as hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, and water (Liang et al., 2012). This
“wet gas” therefore must undergo several purification processes before becoming a clean, dry,
gaseous fuel that is suitable for transport through pipelines for distribution to the end users
(Anyadiegwu et al., 2014). These purification processes generally involve processes that remove
oil, water, and other compounds such as hydrogen sulphide (H2S), mercury (Hg), and carbon
dioxide (CO2) (Bahadori, 2014).

Dehydration is one of the important steps in natural gas purification that removes water vapour
from the natural gas. Such process is deemed necessary since the presence of water vapour in
natural gas stream may cause hydrate formation in natural gas transporting pipelines, which may
subsequently lead to pipeline plugging and/or corrosion (Carroll, 2014). Its presence also lowers
the natural gas combustion efficiency and may bring about the blockage of valves fittings,

1
compression system, process equipment, and instrumentation, particularly when high
concentration of CO2 and H2S are present in the natural gas (Gong et al., 2010). Therefore, the
water content in natural gas stream must be kept below the specific limit that differs according to
different geographical locations. For example, The United States and Canada set the water content
limit of 7 lb of water per million standard cubic feet of gas (lb MMSCF-1) and 4 lb MMSCF-1,
respectively. Countries with colder climate like Alaska often have lower limits, which vary
between 1 and 2 lb MMSCF-1 (Mokhatab et al., 2015).

Several dehydration processes are available such as absorption, adsorption, and refrigeration
(Bahadori, 2014). Among the three aforementioned processes, natural gas dehydration via
absorption using TEG has been widely used for natural gas dehydration given its better
regeneration capability, higher water affinity, higher chemical stability, higher hygroscopicity,
lower vapour pressure, lower evaporation loss rate, and lower thermal degradation rates in the
regeneration system (Bahadori et al., 2008; Rincón et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the drawback of
the absorption process using TEG is the maximum purity (i.e., concentration) of the regenerated
TEG that is limited up to 98.8% (Neagu and Cursaru, 2017). This is because the operating
temperature of the reboiler should be kept below 204 oC, above which the TEG will thermally
degrade (Steele et al., 1996). This limit reduces the absorption process efficiency, leaving
substantial amount of water content to remain present in the supposedly dry product gas (i.e., sale
gas) (Rahimpour et al., 2013). To overcome this limitation and to achieve a more complete water
removal, other alternative processes to enhance the TEG purity limit have been developed such as
stripping gas injection, Stahl column, and Coldfinger technology (Eldemerdash and Kamarudin,
2016).

Among these mentioned enhanced processes, stripping gas injection is the simplest and the most
common method used to enhance TEG regeneration performance. The injection of such stripping
gas is anticipated to reduce the partial pressure of the water, which leads to an increase in the final
purity of the regenerated TEG (Mokhatab et al., 2015). The details of the stripping gas injection
mechanism can be found in the review paper by Kong et al. (2018). It allows the original TEG
purity limit of 98.8% in the conventional process to be increased up to 99.7%. The stripping gas
can be any inert gas that is introduced externally like nitrogen or it can also be a portion of the sale

2
gas (i.e., dry product gas). The latter was reported to enable lower capital cost, lower utility cost,
and lower energy consumption in comparison to the former (Bahadori, 2014). However, these
aforementioned advantages are achieved at a lower profit margin because a portion of sale gas is
utilised as stripping gas. This leads to less amount of product gas becomes available for sale.

My literature survey indicates that only a few publications are present on the techno-economic
analyses for natural gas dehydration via absorption using TEG (Kong et al., 2018). Gad et al.
(2016) studied the potential of replacing nitrogen with a portion of sale gas as stripping gas from
techno-economic perspective. They concluded that using a portion of sale gas as stripping gas
leads to significant savings in operational cost since no external stripping gas (i.e., nitrogen) is
required. A similar study was conducted by Neagu and Cursaru (2017) where they performed
techno-economic analysis between the stripping gas dehydration process using a portion of sale
gas and the conventional dehydration process. They reported that the stripping gas dehydration
process can increase the TEG purity without imposing substantial additional capital cost. It is
worth noting that the common gap from the works of Gad et al. (2016) and Neagu and Cursaru
(2017) is that they have not demonstrated the profit comparison between the stripping gas
dehydration processes. Since a portion of the dry product gas (i.e., sale gas) was consumed as
stripping gas, less dry product gas becomes available for sale. This most likely will reduce the
profit of such enhanced process. Moreover, other stripping gases alternatives are available such as
benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (collectively known as BTEX gases), which can be
obtained within the dehydration process itself (i.e., DRIZO process). Instead of using the dry
product gas as stripping gas, these BTEX gases can also be exploited to minimise the profit
reduction.

In this thesis, I aim to address this limitation by introducing a techno-economic framework to

evaluate the suitability of different dehydration processes to meet the water dew point requirement
specified by the local authority, i.e., Malaysia. To my knowledge, such techno-economic
framework that takes into consideration the net profit comparison has never been reported in any
previous studies. Prior to developing the techno-economic framework, the first contribution in this
thesis is to perform parametric study on the conventional dehydration process via absorption using
TEG to determine an optimum TEG flowrate that provides minimum water content in the dry

3
product gas with minimum TEG loss rate and BTEX emission. Following this, the effect of
different recycling configuration is evaluated to recover the wet gas loss and the TEG loss rate and
minimise the BTEX emission.

The second contribution is the development of a techno-economic framework to evaluate the net
profit made from different dehydration processes. The most profitable dehydration process that
meets the maximum water dew point requirement set by local authority, i.e., Malaysia is selected.
Here, three different dehydration process are considered, i.e., conventional dehydration process,
the stripping gas dehydration process that consumes a portion of the dry product gas as stripping
gas, and the stripping gas dehydration process that consumes external injected nitrogen gas as
stripping gas.

Finally, the third contribution is the extension of the previously developed techno-economic
framework to evaluate the performance of DRIZO process. The performance evaluation is then
compared against the best dehydration process selected earlier, from techno-economic perspective.
This is since the volatile hydrocarbon that is supposedly emitted from the flash tank or the
regenerator overhead may increase the TEG regeneration performance and subsequently improve
the dehydration process performance. Here, three different DRIZO configurations, i.e., the
injection of stripping gas using regenerator overhead, using flash vapour, and using both
regenerator overhead and flash vapour, are considered.

These three main contributions reflect the novelty of the current thesis. Accordingly, this thesis
aims to address the limitation of the previous works where marginal analysis has not been
considered when techno-economic evaluation is performed on different dehydration processes.

1.2 Research Question

Several research questions are considered in this thesis, which include:
1. What are the existing techno-economic framework(s) or model(s) that have been employed
for natural gas dehydration via absorption using TEG and what are their limitations?
2. Can the process performance of the conventional dehydration process be further improved
by implementing different recycling configurations?

4
 3. How to estimate the revenue (i.e., gross profit) generated from the natural gas dehydration
process?
4. Does the profit loss associated with the consumption of the dry product gas as stripping
gas significantly affect the outcome of the techno-economic analysis?
5. Which enhanced dehydration processes can provide both favourable dehydration and
economic performances, i.e., perform best in terms of techno-economic feasibility?

1.3 Scope and Key Research Objectives

This thesis focuses onto natural gas dehydration process via absorption using TEG. The aim of
this thesis is to develop a techno-economic framework for assessing the natural gas dehydration
process performance, with consideration of net profit assessment, which has never been considered
in any of the previous studies.

The detailed objectives of this thesis are as follows:

1. To perform comprehensive review on the natural gas dehydration via absorption using
TEG to obtain insights and in-depth understanding of the available processes. The review
will put more emphasis on highlighting the shortcomings of the existing techno-economic
analysis framework(s) and model(s) for natural gas dehydration via absorption using TEG.
2. To simulate the conventional and enhanced dehydration processes.
3. To develop a techno-economic framework with consideration of net profit assessment that
can assess the techno-economic feasibility of all simulated processes.
4. To determine the best dehydration process that can meet the water dew point requirement
specified by local authority and generates the highest net profit margin.

1.4 Thesis structure

This thesis contains six chapters that is presented in the form of a thesis by publication, where the
core chapters, i.e., Chapters 2 to 5, are made up of a series of journal publications. Each chapter in
this thesis are presented as follow:
x Chapter 1 provides background introduction to natural gas dehydration processes and
introduces the scope and significance of developing techno-economic framework to
determine the best natural gas dehydration process.

5
x Chapter 2 provides an overview on the existing literature studies on natural gas
dehydration processes. The overview focuses on several alternative methods, which were
developed to enhance TEG regeneration performance. The relevant works performed from
1991 to 2021 were summarised and their existing gaps were highlighted as
recommendation for future work.
x Chapter 3 performs parametric study to the conventional dehydration process via
absorption using TEG to obtain an optimum TEG flowrate that provides minimum water
content in the dry product gas with minimum TEG loss rate and BTEX emission. This is
then followed by the evaluation of different recycling configurations applied to the
conventional dehydration process that aims to maximise the recovery of the wet gas loss
and the TEG loss rate while minimising the BTEX emission.
x Chapter 4 introduces a techno-economic framework to evaluate the net profit generated
by the stripping gas dehydration processes that consumes a portion of sale gas and uses
external injected nitrogen gas as stripping gas, respectively. The result are compared
against the conventional dehydration process.
x Chapter 5 extends the developed techno-economic framework to evaluate the performance
of the natural gas dehydration process using the volatile organic compound (i.e., BTEX
gases) as stripping gas (i.e., DRIZO process). This chapter also investigates three different
DRIZO configurations and compare the best DRIZO configuration against the other
dehydration processes from the previous chapters.
x Chapter 6 wraps up the thesis by highlighting the overall contributions of this work to the
knowledge body in this topic and providing the recommendations for future work.

6
Chapter 2. Literature review

This chapter provides an in-depth review on several alternative processes, which were developed
to overcome the glycol purity limit in the conventional absorption-based natural gas dehydration
process. The review focuses on the stripping gas injection using nitrogen, a portion of the dry
product gas, or volatile hydrocarbon (DRIZO process), stripping gas modified with Stahl column,
and Coldfinger technology. The mechanisms, process flow diagrams, advantages, drawbacks, and
current statuses of these aforementioned alternative processes are discussed. The review also
summarises the relevant works conducted from 1991 to 2017 and highlights the existing gaps in
these works to provide outlook for future work. I additionally include the relevant works that are
published in between 2018 until 2021 (i.e., the time this thesis is submitted) at the end of this
chapter.

This chapter, which excludes those work published in between 2018 to 2021, was published as a
review paper in Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering:
Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2018. Revamping existing glycol technologies in
natural gas dehydration to improve the purity and absorption efficiencyௗ: Available methods and
recent developments. J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 56, 486–503. doi:10.1016/j.jngse.2018.06.008

7
 -RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jngse

Review Article

Revamping existing glycol technologies in natural gas dehydration to

improve the purity and absorption efficiency: Available methods and recent
developments
Zong Yang Konga, Ahmed Mahmouda, Shaomin Liub, Jaka Sunarsoa,∗
a
Research Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science, Swinburne University of Technology, Jalan Simpang Tiga, 93350, Kuching,
Sarawak, Malaysia
b
Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, Perth, WA 6845, Australia

A R T I C L E I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The glycol purity limit in conventional absorption-based natural gas dehydration process has led to the sig-
Absorption nificant water vapour presence in the supposedly dry product gas. Several alternative processes have been de-
Dehydration veloped to overcome this limitation that includes stripping gas injection using nitrogen, a portion of dry product
Glycol regeneration gas, or volatile hydrocarbon (DRIZO process), stripping gas modified with Stahl column, and Coldfinger tech-
Natural gas
nology. This review summarises these different processes and elaborates on their mechanisms, process flow
Tri-Ethylene Glycol
diagram, advantages, drawbacks, and current statuses. Relevant works from 1991 to 2017 were compiled and
the existing gaps were highlighted as recommendation for future work.

1. Introduction
Natural gas is an important fossil fuel commodity that was once
considered an unwanted by-product of crude oil production
(Rahimpour et al., 2013a,b). It has been widely applied as a fuel for
cooking, heating, and electricity generation since 1885 when Robert
Bunsen first burnt it with air to create flame within his Bunsen burner.
With the advancement of technology and distribution network infra-
structure, natural gas has presently been utilised for residential, com-
mercial, industrial, and electricity power generation applications.
Natural gas can additionally be used as a raw materials for the pro-
duction of important chemicals, such as hydrogen, fertilisers, and
plastics (Hayhoe et al., 2002). Today, natural gas accounts for ap-
proximately 23.8% of the world primary energy consumption. This
figure is expected to grow by 1.6% per annum between 2015 and 2035
(Outlook, 2016). Natural gas exhibits a cleaner combustion nature re-
lative to other types of fossil fuels such as coal, gasoline, and diesel
(Hayhoe et al., 2002; Roy and Amin, 2012). This is because these other
fossil fuels are made up of at least six carbon molecules and thus, re-
lease six carbon dioxide when they are oxidised. Natural gas, on the
other hand, contains mainly methane with one carbon atom. Relative to
gasoline, natural gas in average generates 74% lower CO2 emission per
unit of energy produced (Klemow and Fetcher, 2011). Likewise, it
displays 85%, 56%, and 71% lower CO2 emissions per energy unit with
respect to the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), coal, and crude oil, re-
spectively. Moreover, the combustion of natural gas generally produces
substantially lower nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and
particulate matter relative to the combustion of coal and oil (Table 1)
(Liang et al., 2012). More essential is the fact that natural gas is also
cheaper than gasoline given its abundant supply on earth. In this con-
text, in 2012, United States (US) President, Barack Obama declared that
more than 100 years of natural gas supply was confirmed in the US
alone (Reuteman, 2012). This “100 years of supply” nonetheless are yet
to be scientifically or geologically confirmed (Behr, 2013). Significant
progress in natural gas processing technology has furthermore lowered
the natural gas price to a value significantly below the gasoline price;
further driving the current trend to replace the gasoline-based vehicles
with the natural gas-based vehicles (NGV) (Congress, 1990).
1.1. Natural gas purification
Natural gas that emerges from the wellhead of the reservoir is de-
fined as “wet gas”. This “wet gas” obtained at different geographical
locations generally has different amount of gas constituents (composi-
tion) (Liang et al., 2012). It normally contains methane, other hydro-
carbons than methane, hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, and water.
Table 2 presents the typical compositions of several natural gas ob-
tained from various countries. This “wet gas” should be subjected to

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: barryjakasunarso@yahoo.com, jsunarso@swinburne.edu.my (J. Sunarso).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2018.06.008
Received 30 January 2018; Received in revised form 19 April 2018; Accepted 3 June 2018
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Z.Y. Kong et al. -RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²

Table 1

(Anyadiegwu et al., 2014; Elendu et al., 2015)

Pollutant emission from different fossil sources (Reproduced from (Liang et al.,
2012)).

(Abdulrahman and Sebastine, 2013)

Pollutant (pounds per billion British Thermal Natural gas Oil Coal
Unit of energy input)

(Kasiri and Hormozdi, 2005)

(Neagu and Cursaru, 2017)

(El Mawgoud et al., 2015)
Carbon Dioxide 117,000 164,000 208,000

(Farahmand et al., 2011)

(Arubi and Duru, 2008)
Carbon Monoxide 0 33 208

(Piemonte et al., 2012)

Nitrogen Oxides 92 448 457

(Jokar et al., 2014)

Sulphur Dioxide 1 1122 2591

(Isa et al., 2013)

Particulates 7 84 2744
Mercury 0.000 0.007 0.016

References
several purification processes to become a clean, dry, gaseous fuel that
is suitable for transport through pipelines for distribution to the end

2
Other HCs
users (Anyadiegwu et al., 2014). In most natural gas processing facil-

0.003
ities, contaminants and heavy hydrocarbon are extracted from the

3.34

3.72

0.06
2.67
0.76
0.96

5.92
N/A

4.4
natural gas stream. In some special cases, heavy hydrocarbons are
added into the natural gas stream to increase natural gas heat content to

Water

0.07
1.42

0.07
0.44
N/A
N/A

N/A
0.4

2.3
an acceptable British Thermal Unit (BTU) level (Roy and Amin, 2012).

2
The purification process generally involves processes that remove oil,

1
Rare gases
water, and other compounds such as hydrogen sulphide (H2S), mercury

Traces
(Hg), and carbon dioxide (CO2) (Bahadori, 2014). Fig. 1 shows the

N/A

N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
general sequence for gas purification processes in series, which include
phase separation followed by acid gas removal, mercury removal,

Hydrogen Sulphide H2S

natural gas dehydration, natural gas liquid (NGL) recovery, and lique-
faction and compression to pipelines (Alcheikhhamdon and Hoorfar,
2016). In addition to these processes, additional equipment such as
scrubbers and heaters are often required at or near the wellhead.

0.0001
Scrubber is used to remove sand and other large particle impurities

Traces
0.03

0.04
N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A
N/A
0–5

while heater is used to prevent the temperature drop to the values

where the hydrate formation becomes favourable (Roy and Amin,
Nitrogen N2

2012). This review manuscript mainly focuses on the dehydration

process. The details on the other purification processes can be found
Traces
11.12
0.63

0.62

4.76

3.52

1.60
1.22
0–5

elsewhere (Alcheikhhamdon and Hoorfar, 2016; Faramawy et al.,

5

2016).
Oxygen O2

0–0.2

0.02
N/A

N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A

N/A

1.2. Natural gas dehydration

Carbon Dioxide CO2

Dehydration is a process that removes water from the natural gas.

This process is required since water vapour presence in the natural gas
stream provides safety issue during the subsequent transportation
process. For example, its presence may cause hydrate formation in the
0.004

Rare gases refer to Helium (He), Neon (Ne), Argon (Ar), and Xenon (Xe).

transporting pipeline, which eventually leads to pipeline plugging and/

8.65

4.96

0.59
1.91
1.32

0.70
0.21
0–8

8.4

or corrosion (Carroll, 2014). Such issue was first reported by Ham-

merschmidt in 1934, following which significant resources were then
Butane C4H10

allocated by natural gas industry to understand and predict hydrate

formation and equilibria (Hubbard, 1991). The lifetime of the gas pi-
0.006
10.12
1.17

6.72
14.9
0.04
0.52
1.13
4.29

peline in particular is determined by the pipeline corrosion rate, which

in turn is directly related to the water content in natural gas (Elendu
Propane C3H8

et al., 2015). Furthermore, the presence of water vapour in the natural

Other HC refers to hydrocarbon of C5 and above.
Natural gas compositions from different sources.

gas stream also reduces natural gas combustion efficiency and may
19.48

induce the blockage of valves fittings, compression system, process

2.51

9.08
15.8
0.13
0.87
2.35
6.06
0.20

equipment, and instrumentation, particularly when CO2 and H2S are

present in the natural gas (Gong et al., 2010; Mokhatab et al., 2006).
Ethane C2H6

Such internal corrosion has become a regular issue in oil and gas in-
11.15

15.65

24.08

dustry that is accountable behind more than 29% of the global pipeline
Gas Composition (%)

0–20
7.06

12.9
0.77
2.58
5.54

2.50

corrosion accidents from 1998 to 2008 (Obanijesu et al., 2014). In the

event of pipeline rupture, the gas release to the environment may fur-
Methane CH4

ther lead to undesirable consequences such as fire break out, air quality
reduction, and gas exposure to the surroundings flora and fauna
70–90
76.62

63.31

93.61
80.26

71.64

38.53
38.6

85.3

94.9

(Sonibare et al., 2010). Thus, the water content in natural gas has been
strictly regulated; the limit of which varies for different countries. For
Location

example, in the US and Canada, the water content in natural gas should
Nigeria
Table 2

Egypt

UAE

N/A
N/A
Iran

Iraq

not exceed 7 lb of water per million standard cubic feet of gas (lb
MMSCF−1) and 4 lb MMSCF−1, respectively. Country with colder
1


Z.Y. Kong et al.
climate like Alaska often has lower limits, which range between 1 and 2
lb MMSCF−1 (Mokhatab et al., 2015). Another common way of in-
dicating the water content in natural gas is by representing it in terms of
water dew point. It signifies the temperature where natural gas be-
comes saturated with water vapour at a particular pressure. A reduction
in temperature or an increase in pressure, at any given dew point leads
to the condensation of water. Lower water dew point generally signifies
a lower water content (Bahadori, 2014). The specification of water dew
point is usually specified in sales gas contracts or determined by the
requirements for transport, processing, or storage of dry product gas.
For example, the water dew point specification for natural gas trans-
ported through pipelines in Europe is typically 8 °C at 70 bar (Bahadori,
2014). Compliance with these specified values translates to protection
against hydrate formation during winter. Lower water content is also
recommended in cryogenic unit equipment (e.g., turbo-expander) case
to prevent hydrate (or ice) formation that may damage the equipment.
These aforementioned reasons highlight the importance of dehydration
in gas processing and conditioning.
In the early days, line heaters were used to keep the temperature of
the gas above the water dew point to prevent formation of condensate
since the pipelines were rather short and the gas for the heaters was
cheap. With significant increase in the length of the high-pressure gas
transporting pipelines over time, a more economical method to dehy-
drate natural gas becomes desirable (Hubbard, 1991). At present, sev-
eral dehydration processes are available such as absorption, adsorption,
and condensation (that is refrigeration). Absorption and adsorption
physically remove water from natural gas at low temperature and high
pressure (Bahadori, 2014). The former utilises hygroscopic liquid de-
siccants that are loaded into trays or packed towers whereas the latter
applies solid desiccants that are loaded into dry-bed dehydrators
(Alcheikhhamdon and Hoorfar, 2016). Condensation, on the other
hand, employs gas cooling to condense water vapour into liquid phase
and remove it from the natural gas stream. A work by Netusil and Ditl
(2011) that provides a detailed discussion on the comparison between
these three processes can be referred to. In addition to these conven-
tional processes, advanced technologies such as membrane and super-
sonic technology have recently emerged (Dalane et al., 2017; Haghighi
et al., 2015; Machado et al., 2012; Scholes et al., 2012). Each process
gives advantages that match particular natural gas condition. Adsorp-
tion, for example, is normally used when the gas contains a high con-
centration of H2S or when the gas product is required to have a very low
water content specification (Bahadori, 2014). Adsorption can also be
used as an additional processing step following absorption process
(Gandhidasan et al., 2001). Condensation, unlike the other processes,
Table 3
Several alternative options (processes) to enhance the glycol (e.g., TEG) purity in the dehydration system.
Options Characteristic
Stripping process using inert gas (e.g., N2) Stripping gas is injected into the reboiler
Stripping process using a portion of dry
product gas
Stripping process using volatile hydrocarbon
(e.g., BTEX gases) – also known as DRIZO
process
Stripping process with Stahl column Stripping gas is injected into a new column
Coldfinger technology The water vapour from the TEG-water mixture in
the surge tank is condensed using the cooling coil
(that is Coldfinger)

-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
Fig. 1. General sequence for natural gas purification
processes.
can be used simultaneously to recover NGL and dehydrate natural gas
(Netusil and Ditl, 2011).
1.3. Natural gas dehydration via absorption using glycol
Among all mentioned processes, natural gas dehydration via ab-
sorption using glycol is the most economically attractive one since it
requires lower energy relative to adsorption although both processes
can be used to obtain dry natural gas with identical dew point
(Bahadori, 2014). The presence of hydroxyl groups in glycols leads to
the formation of hydrogen bonds, which are essentially the bonds that
are present in-between water molecules; thus making glycol a good
absorber for water (Paymooni et al., 2011). Tri-Ethylene Glycol (TEG)
in particular is the most widely used glycol given its regeneration
capability, high water affinity, high chemical stability, high hygro-
scopicity, low vapour pressure, low evaporation loss rate, and low
thermal degradation rates in the regeneration system (Bahadori et al.,
2008; Rincón et al., 2016). The first commercial TEG dehydration unit
was developed and operated by a company in Texas, known as BS&B in
early 1950s (Hubbard, 1991). Some glycols other than TEG have also
been utilised for dehydration such as Mono-Ethylene Glycol (MEG), Di-
Ethylene Glycol (DEG), and Tetra-Ethylene Glycol (TREG). Several
dehydration units in Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, and
Oklahoma, for example, operate using MEG and DEG (Ebeling et al.,
1998). These glycols nonetheless are seldom used due to the difficulty
to reach the water content specified for the natural gas in the pipeline
(Derawi et al., 2003). Anyadiegwu et al. (2014) nonetheless suggested
the use of glycol blending as a more economical alternative to the single
glycol-based process, which is more widely used. Their suggestion
however has not been verified in any of the previous studies.
In 1970s, gas processing industry began to realise that one of the
main challenges of the dehydration process using glycol (e.g., TEG) is
the maximum purity (that is concentration) of the regenerated glycol in
the regeneration column. For example, the purity for regenerated TEG
is limited up to 98.8% in the conventional dehydration process (Neagu
and Cursaru, 2017). This is because the operating temperature of the
reboiler should be kept below 204 °C, above which TEG thermally de-
grades (Steele et al., 1996). This limit makes the absorption process to
remove water in the absorption column becomes less effective since
substantial water content remains present in the supposedly dry pro-
duct gas coming out from the absorption process (M R Rahimpour et al.,
2013a,b). Thus, to achieve a more complete water removal, several
alternative options (processes) to enhance the glycol (e.g., TEG) purity
have been developed. Stripping gas injection, Stahl column, and
TEG purity, wt. % References
99.7 (Gad et al., 2016)
99.6–99.7 (Darwish et al., 2004; Ebeling et al., 1998; Gad et al.,
2016; Hernandez-valencia et al., 1992; Neagu and
Cursaru, 2017)
99.99 (Eldemerdash and Kamarudin, 2016; Jokar et al.,
2014; Saidi et al., 2014)
99.96 (Baktash et al., 2010; Behbahani et al., 2016; Braek
et al., 2001)
99.92–99.96 (Piemonte et al., 2012; Rahimpour et al., 2013a,b)
Z.Y. Kong et al. -RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²

Coldfinger technology are some of the well-known processes to improve
the purity limit on regenerated glycol (e.g., TEG) (Table 3)
(Eldemerdash and Kamarudin, 2016; Rahimpour et al., 2013a,b). De-
tails of these processes are to be covered in Section 2.
Another drawback of absorption using glycol is the simultaneous
absorption of aromatic compounds, abbreviated as “BTEX”, which
comprises of Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl Benzene, and Xylene (Plisga,
2004a). These compounds do not accumulate in the glycol circulation
loop and majority of these BTEX gases are emitted from the regenerator
overhead while minor portion of them is released through the flash
vapour stream. These BTEX gases are hazardous and thus, cannot be
released directly to the environment. Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl Benzene,
and Xylene are classified as irritants with narcotic effects. Benzene is
additionally regarded as a carcinogenic chemical compound (Braek
et al., 2001). The presence of BTEX gases in the dehydration process has
also been associated with severe foaming, flooding, higher glycol loss
rate, low dehydration efficiency, and higher maintenance cost for the
absorber (Yu et al., 2017). In the past, the solubility of these BTEX
compounds in glycol was not a major concern due to the relatively low
natural gas production. Increasing production rate however has made
the emission of BTEX a major concern for natural gas industry. There-
fore, BTEX emission amount from the dehydration unit has been strictly
monitored in several countries. For example, regulatory programs that
were established by the US government under the Clean Air Act
Amendments in 1990 have included BTEX in its list of 189 Hazardous
Air Pollutant (HAP). This Act limits BTEX emission to a maximum of 10
tons per year for any individual pollutant or a maximum of 25 tons per
year for the total four pollutants (Ebeling et al., 1998). Today, several
options (strategies) can be applied to minimise the BTEX emission such
as incinerating the emitted BTEX gases (that is flaring), adding a con-
densation unit to the regenerator overhead to recover the BTEX gases,
implementing a new process design, optimising the existing process,
and/or using another BTEX less-absorbing glycol as solvent. Table 4
provides an overview on these five different strategies. Detailed dis-
cussion of these strategies are available elsewhere (Braek et al., 2001;
Grizzle, 1993).
Another issue associated with glycol dehydration is the safety con-
cern caused by the toxicity of glycols. For example, high level of glycol
exposure to human body can interfere with the ability of the blood to
carry oxygen and causes headache, collapse, or even death. It may also
affect the human nervous system and damage the red blood cells that
leads to anaemia (low blood count). Nevertheless, a few natural oc-
curring materials such as orange peel oils or non-toxic glycol extracted
from Tricholoma matsutake (edible mushroom) have been found suitable
to replace glycol for natural gas dehydration application. However, the
usage of these glycols for commercial application has not been reported
(Chhetri and Islam, 2008).
1.4. Objective
At present, our literature survey indicates that only a handful
amount of reviews are available for natural gas dehydration
(Alcheikhhamdon and Hoorfar, 2016; Baker, 2002; Dalane et al., 2017;
Faramawy et al., 2016; Haghighi et al., 2015; Hubbard, 1991; May-
Britt, 1998; Netusil and Ditl, 2011; Scholes et al., 2012). Most of these
reviews however focus on a series of natural gas purification processes.
Our manuscript here nonetheless covers the review articles that focus
entirely on natural gas dehydration. Hubbard (1991) overviews the
advancement in the commercial applications of natural gas dehydration
associated with phase equilibria from 1950 to 1990. Netusil and Ditl
(2011) provides an overview on natural gas dehydration and compare
absorption, adsorption, and condensation in terms of their energy
consumption. They showed that absorption has the lowest energy de-
mand. Recent review works are available that discuss the recent
emerging technologies such as the latest development in supersonic
technology (Haghighi et al., 2015) and membrane technology (Dalane
et al., 2017) for dehydration. Although these aforementioned reviews
touch upon dehydration by absorption using glycol (e.g., TEG), none of
them discusses this process in detail and elaborates the available pro-
cesses to improve the glycol purity limit and the environmental issues
associated with the dehydration process. This review thus attempts to
present several different available processes to enhance the glycol
purity. To start with, the review discusses the process flow diagram for
the established dehydration process to provide complete understanding
of this process. Following this, the review then explains the available
processes to improve the glycol purity such as the use of stripping gas
injection, Stahl column, and Coldfinger technology. The advantages,
drawbacks, current statuses, and the associated process flow diagram
for each of these processes are also presented. Then, the review sum-
marises the relevant works published from 1991 to 2017. The last part
of this review introduces the recent emerging technologies such as
membrane and supersonic technologies for dehydration. This review
however does not discuss on the latest development of these technol-
ogies to avoid presenting overlapped content to the existing reviews
(Dalane et al., 2017; Haghighi et al., 2015).
1.5. Process flow diagram for absorption using glycol
Fig. 2 shows the schematic process flow diagram for natural gas
dehydration via absorption using glycol (e.g., TEG) (Øi and Tyvand
Selstø, 2002). The overall process consists of two major process units;
the absorption of water in the absorber and the regeneration of TEG in
the regenerator. TEG regeneration affects the water content in the re-
generated TEG and eventually, the quality of the dry product gas (sale
gas) (Bahadori and Vuthaluru, 2009a).
Prior to the water absorption column unit, any other liquid content
(e.g., hydrocarbon and/or water) within the natural gas should be re-
moved beforehand. This is normally achieved by installing a two or
three phase separator before the column. Two different configurations
of separator units are depicted in Fig. 3. The phase separation can be
provided by a separate individual unit (Fig. 3(a)) or within the ab-
sorption column, at the bottom section of the column, by a chimney
tray that lies between the column bottom and the separator vessel
(Fig. 3(b)) (Abdulrahman and Sebastine, 2013). First configuration is

Table 4
Several options (strategies) to reduce BTEX emission (Reproduced from (Braek et al., 2001)).
Options Description

Incineration (that is flaring)
Condensation
New process design
Process optimisation
Alternative glycol
Flaring the BTEX gases emitted could eliminate BTEX emission but it is not environmentally sustainable.
Adding additional condensation unit to the regenerator to recover the BTEX gases is an economical option and it is relatively easy to operate.
However, the disposal of water phase containing BTEX compounds must be properly considered.
Recycling the BTEX gases and using it as stripping gas (DRIZO process) to enhance the purity on regenerated glycol is a good alternative to control
BTEX emission while meeting water dew point requirement.
Optimising operating conditions of the existing dehydration plant can significantly reduce the BTEX emission especially on the equipment such as
flash tank and regenerator where BTEX gases are directly emitted.
Alternative glycol such as MEG and DEG can help to reduce the BTEX emission. They are also less costly and require less energy for regeneration
compared to TEG.


Z.Y. Kong et al. -RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²

source of stripping gas comes externally, which in turn, increases the operating cost of deemed more economic since removing liquid content of the gas before

providing additional equilibrium stages that leads to extra water removal

few additional minor equipment is required such as a heat exchanger and an expansion

equipment is required such as three phase separator, pump, and heater.

environmental emission since the BTEX gases are recycled back to the regeneration
passing it into the column significantly decreases the volume of the
natural gas stream to be handled. This translates to the reduction in the

• Low capital cost since it only requires an additional surge tank with cooling coil.
source of stripping gas comes internally from the dehydration process itself.

source of stripping gas comes internally from the dehydration process itself.
absorption column size and the amount of TEG required (Abdulrahman
and Sebastine, 2013). An inlet cooler is often installed before the phase
separator to reduce the wet gas temperature to the desired temperature
(not shown in Fig. 2) (Øi and Tyvand Selstø, 2002).

new technologies that has not been extensively studied.

In the absorption column, the high-pressure wet natural gas enters
from the bottom and goes up in counter-current manner against the
water-lean (pure) TEG stream that enters from the top of the column.
capital cost since an extra column is required. During their contact, the water-lean TEG absorbs the water vapour of
the wet gas. The dehydrated natural gas (dry product gas) comes out
from the top of column whereas the water-rich TEG that typically
contains 3–7% of water comes out from the bottom of the column
(Baktash et al., 2010).
additional equipment is required.

Before entering the flash separator, the water-rich TEG passes

through an expansion valve that reduces the stream pressure to a de-
the water-rich TEG.

sired level. Then, the water-rich TEG is directed into a vertical two-
phase separator (flash separator), where its low pressure and high
the dehydration plant.

temperature facilitates the removal of light and soluble gas component

such as CO2 and BTEX gases (Fig. 2) (Braek et al., 2001). These gases
• AAnfewextraadditional
• steps fromcolumn
Main characteristic

can be recovered and used as a fuel in the reboiler or for other purposes
(Kohl and Nielsen, 1997). The water-rich TEG leaving the flash tank is
• Additional
• Relatively
column.

then directed to a cartridge filters (not shown in Fig. 2), where solid
• Avalve.
• Low
• The
• The
• The

particles are filtered to prevent (or reduce) the corrosion, plugging, and
• No

deposits problems in the reboiler unit (Rincón et al., 2016). In larger

systems, activated charcoal and sock filter are generally used
Total

(Gandhidasan, 2003).
4

After that, the water-rich TEG is pre-heated before entering the

Economical assessment

regeneration column. Two different heating configurations can be used

(Fig. 4). The most commonly reported configuration is the passing of
the water-rich TEG through the tubes in the overhead condenser at the
Ranking for each criteria are based on score of 1–3; 1 being the least preferred and 3 being the most preferred.

top of the regeneration column (Fig. 4(a)) (Carroll, 2014; Netusil and
Comparison overview for the different enhanced processes available to improve the glycol (e.g., TEG) purity.

Ditl, 2011; Øi and Tyvand Selstø, 2002; Rahimpour et al., 2013a,b). The
alternative configuration is the use of a glycol to glycol heat exchanger
1

where the water-rich TEG is passed through a separate shell and tube
BTEX emissions

heat exchanger to exchange heat with the water-lean TEG that comes
out from the regeneration column (Fig. 4(b)) (Anyadiegwu et al., 2014;
Neagu and Cursaru, 2017; Rincón et al., 2016).
In the regeneration column, the water-rich TEG enters from the top
of the column and flows downward while water vapour, hydrocarbon,
1

and traces of TEG are removed from the regenerator overhead. The
TEG purity

regenerated TEG (that is water-lean TEG) exiting the regeneration

column is then directed to the top of the absorption column by the use
2

of circulation pump. TEG portion that is lost during the absorption,

flash, and regeneration processes were compensated via an additional
make-up flow.
Stripping process using volatile hydrocarbon (e.g., BTEX gases) – also

Before entering the absorption column, the water-lean TEG should

be cooled down. Two different cooling configurations are possible
(Fig. 5). The most widely reported configuration is the cooling of the
water-lean TEG by heat exchange with the dry gas coming out from the
Stripping process using a portion of dry product gas

absorber (Fig. 5(a)) (Neagu and Cursaru, 2017; Netusil and Ditl, 2011;
Rahimpour et al., 2013a,b; Rincón et al., 2016). Another option is the
cooling of the water-lean TEG by an air cooler (Fig. 5(b)) (Carroll,
Stripping process using inert gas (e.g., N2)

2014; Øi and Tyvand Selstø, 2002).

Stripping process with Stahl column

2. Processes to improve glycol purity limit

known as DRIZO process

Coldfinger technology

This section discusses the different processes available to improve

the glycol purity limit. The advantages, drawbacks, current statuses,
and the associated process flow diagram for each of these processes are
presented. Notably, these processes are applicable to all glycols dehy-
Options

dration application and for the sake of simplicity, TEG is used as an

Table 5

example to elaborate these enhanced processes.


Z.Y. Kong et al.
Fig. 2. Process flow diagram for natural gas dehydration by absorption using glycol (e.g., TEG) (Reproduced from (Øi and Tyvand Selstø, 2002)).
2.1. Stripping gas processes
2.1.1. Overview
Stripping gas processes is regarded as the simplest and the most
common route to obtain enhanced TEG regeneration performance. It
enables the original TEG purity limit of 98.8% in the default process
(Fig. 2) to be increased up to 99.2–99.99%; depending on the different
types of stripping gas, thus leading to lower water content for the re-
generated TEG (Neagu and Cursaru, 2017). This process was first in-
troduced in 1991 and relies on the injection of the stripping gas into the
reboiler of the regeneration column (Kidnay et al., 2011; Piemonte
et al., 2012). Introduction of such stripping gas generally reduces the
partial pressure of the water and leads to an increase in the final purity
on the regenerated TEG (Mokhatab et al., 2015). The mechanism of the
stripping gas process is further discussed in Section 2.1.2. The stripping
gas can be any inert gas such as nitrogen that is introduced externally, a
portion of dry product gas (sale gas), or volatile hydrocarbon (e.g.,
BTEX gases) that are supposedly emitted into the atmosphere in the
default process (Fig. 2) (that is DRIZO process). Two different methods
are available for stripping gas injection into the dehydration system.
The first method relies on the injection of the stripping gas into the
reboiler of the regeneration column. The second method involves the
injection of the stripping gas into an additional packed column (that is
Stahl column). The differences of these two methods are further
Fig. 3. Two different cooler-absorption-separator configurations; (a) Individual unit configuration; and (b) Separator integrated within the absorption column.

-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
elaborated in Section 2.1.6.
2.1.2. Stripping gas mechanism
Stripping gas is a physical separation process that works according
to the thermodynamic principle of Raoult's law. It relies on the use of a
vapour stream (e.g., dry product gas) to remove one or more compo-
nent from the liquid stream (e.g., water from TEG). The Raoult's law of
water is given as:
ywater P Water Partial Pressure
xwater = =
P Sat
water Water Saturation Vapour Pressure (1)
where xwater is the mole fraction of water in liquid phase, ywater is the
mole fraction of water in vapour phase, P is the system pressure, and
P Sat
water is the saturated pressure of water.
The fugacity and the activity coefficient are absent in Equation (1)
because it was assumed that both the liquid and vapour phase are in
ideal state. This assumption is valid for the purpose of demonstrating
the working principle of stripping gas mechanism although the mixture
of water, TEG, and methane are non-ideal in reality. At a given pressure
and temperature in reboiler, the Raoult's law of water (Equation (1))
indicates the direct proportionality between the mole fraction of water
in liquid phase and the partial pressure of water (that is, xwater de-
creases with reduction in ywater P or vice versa).
Next, the total pressure of the system (P) is given by the sum of
Z.Y. Kong et al.
Fig. 4. Two different pre-heating configurations for the water-rich TEG; (a) Heating by an overhead condenser; and (b) Heating by a glycol to glycol heat exchanger.
partial pressure of all components, given as:
3
P≈ ∑ yi P= (yTEGP) + (ywater P) + (ymethaneP)
i= 1
Equation (2) is valid for any gas mixture but only methane is used in
this case for the sake of simplicity. The partial pressure of TEG (yTEGP )
can be neglected from Equation (2) due to higher water vapour pressure
relative to TEG. When heated, much more water will evaporate than
TEG (Anyadiegwu et al., 2014). Following this, Equation (2) reduces to
the following:
2
P≈ ∑ yiP = (ywater P) + (ymethaneP)
i=1
At constant pressure P (e.g., reboiler condition), an increase in the
partial pressure of methane leads to the decrease in the partial pressure
of water (Equation (3)). This translates to a lower mole fraction of
water in the liquid phase (since mole fraction of water is directly pro-
portional to the partial pressure of water based on Raoult's law
(Equation (1)). Thus, stripping gas injection (that is increasing methane
concentration) reduces the mole fraction of water in TEG and leads to a
higher purity of the regenerated TEG stream.
2.1.3. Stripping process using inert gas
Inert gas like nitrogen are good hydrate inhibitors, which can also
be used as the stripping gas to improve the purity of the regenerated
Fig. 5. Two different cooling configurations for the water-lean TEG prior entering to the absorber; (a) Cooling by heat exchange with dry product gas; and (b)
Cooling by an air cooler.
-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
TEG stream (Gad et al., 2016). This however was achieved at an ex-
pense of an increase in the utility cost and the energy consumption
since the inert gas required comes externally, not from the default
(2) process itself. The configuration for such stripping process (Fig. 6) is
identical to the default absorption process (Fig. 2) except for the in-
jection of the stripping gas (e.g., nitrogen gas) into the regeneration
column.
2.1.4. Stripping process using a portion of dry product gas
Instead of using external inert gas as the stripping gas as in the
previous case (Section 2.1.3), a portion of dry product gas (sale gas) can
also be used as the stripping gas. The configuration for such stripping
(3) process (Fig. 7) is also identical to the default absorption process
(Fig. 2) except for the injection of a portion of the dry product gas into
the regeneration column. Such configuration (Fig. 7) is also analogous
to the stripping gas process using inert gas (Fig. 6), although the source
of the stripping gas in the present case (that is dry product gas) is ob-
tained within the dehydration system instead of being introduced ex-
ternally (Compare Figs. 6 and 7). The stripping gas that comes from the
absorption column in the present case is additionally directed to an
expansion valve followed by a heater to adjust its operating condition
(that is pressure and temperature) so that it matches the operating
condition of the regeneration column (Fig. 7). Such stripping process is
deemed more economic relative to the stripping process in the previous
case (Section 2.1.3) since the stripping gas is obtained internally. Such
stripping process nonetheless requires negligible amount of additional

Z.Y. Kong et al. -RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²

Fig. 6. Process flow diagram for natural gas dehydration by absorption using glycol (e.g., TEG) modified with the injection of inert stripping gas (e.g., nitrogen) into
the regeneration column.

investment since only a few supplementary equipment are required operating cost, and the energy consumption for the dehydration pro-
(e.g., heat exchanger and/or expansion valve). cess. DRIZO process can furthermore maximise profit better than the
previous two cases since it avoids the consumption of valuable sale gas
as stripping gas. Other than that, another important advantage of
2.1.5. Stripping process using volatile hydrocarbon (e.g., BTEX gases)
DRIZO process is the recovery of the volatile hydrocarbon from the
The volatile hydrocarbon (e.g., BTEX gases) that is supposedly
regenerator, which leads to a lower BTEX emission (Saidi et al., 2014).
emitted into the atmosphere in the default process (Fig. 2) can also be
The process flow diagram for DRIZO process is presented in Fig. 8.
used as stripping gas instead of using the inert gas or a portion of the
In comparison to the default process (Fig. 2), DRIZO process requires
dry product gas as in the previous two stripping gas cases (Section 2.1.3
additional equipment such as a cooler, heater, three-phase separator,
and Section 2.1.4). This process is known as DRIZO process, which was
and a pump (Fig. 8) (Øi and Tyvand Selstø, 2002). The BTEX-containing
first developed by Dow chemical company in 1970s (Ebeling et al.,
regenerator overhead stream, which was supposedly emitted to the
1998) and can be adopted to the default absorption process (Fig. 2) to
atmosphere in the default process (Fig. 2), is fed into the three-phase
achieve higher purity of up to 99.99% on the regenerated TEG (Elendu
separator after cooling. Due to their densities difference, the light va-
et al., 2015; Mokhatab et al., 2015). This is since the volatile hydro-
pour phase, aqueous phase, and the BTEX gases are separated in the
carbon gives better water-TEG separation efficiency compared to me-
three-phase separator (Saidi et al., 2014). The light vapour phase and
thane alone (Paymooni et al., 2011). In fact, higher regenerated TEG
aqueous phase leaves the three-phase separator via the top and the
purity of up to 99.999% using DRIZO process has been commercially
bottom stream, respectively. The BTEX-containing stream, on the other
reported (Kohl and Nielsen, 1997). The high purity of regenerated TEG
hand, is heated before returning to the reboiler as stripping gas via a
obtainable in DRIZO process leads to a lower TEG flowrate needed for
pump.
the dehydration process. This in turn reduces the BTEX emission, the

Fig. 7. Process flow diagram for natural gas dehydration by absorption using glycol (e.g., TEG) modified with the injection of a portion of dry product gas (sale gas)
as stripping gas into the regeneration column.


Z.Y. Kong et al.
Fig. 8. Process flow diagram for DRIZO process.
2.1.6. Stripping processes using Stahl column
As stated in the overview section (Section 2.1.1), the stripping gas
can alternatively be injected into an additional column that is located
after the reboiler, defined as “Stahl column” (Fig. 9), instead of in-
jecting it directly into the reboiler of the regeneration column. This
method essentially follows the identical mechanism explained in Sec-
tion 2.1.2. The use of an additional column provides additional equi-
librium stages that leads to extra water removal steps from the water-
rich TEG. This leads to an increase in purity on regenerated TEG up to
99.96% when a portion of dry product gas is used as stripping gas and
thus, giving drier product gas than the one obtained in the default
process (Fig. 2) (Elendu et al., 2015; Protreat, 2015a). Unlike the other
stripping process (Figs. 6-8), the stripping gas in the present case is
injected into the bottom of Stahl column. The partially-stripped TEG
Fig. 9. Process flow diagram for the regeneration column portion of natural gas
dehydration by absorption using TEG modified with the injection of stripping
gas into Stahl column.

-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
from the reboiler of the regeneration column is fed into the top of Stahl
column while the lean TEG leaves through the bottom of Stahl column.
The overhead vapour from Stahl column can be directed into the
bottom section of the regeneration column (Fig. 10(a)) or into the re-
boiler of the regeneration column (Fig. 10(b)) to evaporate the water
vapour removed from the lean-TEG stream (Protreat, 2015a, 2015b).
The former configuration is deemed more effective to evaporate the
water vapour, given the higher temperature in the reboiler compared to
the bottom of the regeneration column.
2.2. Coldfinger technology
Coldfinger technology, which was developed in 1975, relies on the
condensation mechanism to further purify the lean TEG from the re-
boiler to a higher purity; reaching a maximum of 99.96% (Mokhatab
et al., 2015; Netusil and Ditl, 2011; Plisga, 2004b). This technology is
easy to install and does not require any stripping gas. It also has a short
payback period, which makes it attractive for industrial uses (Øi and
Tyvand Selstø, 2002).
In this process, the partially-stripped lean TEG from the reboiler is
directed to a separate vessel (that is surge tank) which is half-filled with
the partially-stripped lean TEG while the other half is occupied by a
vapour mixture consisting of mainly water and traces of TEG
(Fig. 11(a)). The water vapour comes from the lean TEG itself. The
cooling coil (that is Coldfinger technology) is installed in the vapour
space of the surge tank (Fig. 11(a)). It can alternatively be integrated
with the reboiler of the regeneration column (Fig. 11(b)) (Piemonte
et al., 2012). The cooling coil continuously condenses the vapour
mixture above the lean TEG. The water vapour (condensate) is then
discharged to the reboiler through a tray that is placed under the
cooling coil (not shown in (Fig. 11). Traces of TEG that are discharged
during the condensation process are recovered in the regenerator. As
the condensate continuously flows to the reboiler, the remaining liquid
phase in the surge tank naturally seeks to restore the vapour-liquid
equilibrium by producing vapour phase. By doing so, the traces of water
in the lean TEG stream is exhausted before it reaches the outlet nozzle
of the surge tank. Within a limited residence time, the water in the
liquid phase depletes while the residual liquid (lean TEG) concentration
increases.
2.3. Comparison overview
Table 5 presents a quantitative performance overview of the dif-
ferent enhanced processes available to improve the glycol (e.g., TEG)
purity limit listed in Table 3. The performance criteria for each
Z.Y. Kong et al.
Fig. 10. Two different overhead vapour configurations for Stahl column; (a) Vapour flows directly into the bottom of the regeneration column; and (b) Vapour flows
into reboiler of the regeneration column.
enhanced dehydration processes are the glycol (e.g., TEG) purity, BTEX
emissions, and economical evaluation (that is the consideration be-
tween profit, capital cost, and operating cost). The scoring in Table 5
however was categorised entirely based on the Authors’ opinion after
careful evaluation on the available literature with a score of 1–3; with 1
being the least preferred and 3 being the most preferred score for each
criteria.
Among these processes, the injection of stripping gas is the simplest
and the most common route to obtained enhanced TEG regeneration
performance. The injection of dry product gas in particular provides
lower capital cost, lower utility cost, and less energy consumption re-
lative to the injection of external stripping gas (e.g., nitrogen) although
both stripping processes can attain similar TEG regeneration perfor-
mance. However, the aforementioned advantages are achieved at a
lower profit margin on the dehydration process since a portion of dry
product gas (sale gas) was consumed as stripping gas. Nevertheless, the
profit loss has never been discussed in detail in any of the previous
studies. Accordingly, DRIZO process has been devised, which relies on
Fig. 11. Two different ways to incorporate Coldfinger apparatus; (a) Separate system; and (b) Integration with reboiler.

-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
the use of the volatile hydrocarbon component (e.g., BTEX gases) that is
originally released to the atmosphere in the default process (Fig. 2) as
stripping gas. DRIZO process generates substantially lower BTEX gas
emissions while removing larger amount of water or equivalently,
generating higher purity on regenerated TEG relative to the other two
stripping processes that uses the inert gas and a portion of dry product
gas as presented earlier. This translates to a lower TEG circulation rate
(flowrate), which in turn, scale down the operating cost and energy
consumption for the dehydration system. Nevertheless, DRIZO process
brings extra capital cost since it requires the presence of additional
equipment such as a three-phase separator, a pump, and a heat ex-
changer, relative to the other stripping gas processes (Compare Figs. 6-
8). At present, the higher economic potential of DRIZO process com-
pared to the other stripping process (e.g., stripping process using a
portion of dry product gas) remains questionable. So far, no previous
study has ever evaluated on the economic analysis that compares
DRIZO process against stripping processes using inert gas and/or a
portion of dry product gas.
Z.Y. Kong et al.
Next, injection of the stripping gas into Stahl column provides ad-
ditional equilibrium stages to further purify the partially-stripped TEG
that comes from the reboiler to a higher purity; reaching as high as
99.96%. This however was achieved at an expense of increase in the
capital cost, the operating cost, and the energy consumption for the
overall plant. As a result, it becomes unclear if Stahl column may
generate a better profit relative to the conventional stripping processes.
Very little literature information is available on Stahl column and fur-
ther comparison is required between the Stahl column process and the
conventional stripping process, especially in terms of techno-econom-
ical aspects. Furthermore, most studies associated to Stahl column only
focus on using a portion of the dry product gas to enhance the purity of
the regenerated TEG. What is not yet clear is the impact of injecting
inert gas (e.g., nitrogen gas) or the volatile hydrocarbon gas (e.g., BTEX
gases) into the Stahl column. Future studies should also be performed to
investigate the effect of simultaneous injection of stripping gas into the
reboiler of the regeneration column and the Stahl column.
Lastly, the purity of the regenerated TEG nonetheless can be en-
hanced by using the Coldfinger technology instead of the stripping gas
processes. Coldfinger technology is easy to install and has a shorter
payback period which makes it attractive for industrial uses. In com-
parison to all the stripping processes, the Coldfinger technology is much
newer and has not been intensively studied (Piemonte et al., 2012;
Rahimpour et al., 2013a,b). Further understanding about their me-
chanisms and effectiveness is thus required (Saidi et al., 2014).
To this end, our comparison assessment demonstrates that DRIZO
process (Fig. 8) provides the highest purity on the regenerated TEG with
the least BTEX emission relative to all other enhanced processes. DRIZO
process is also the most economic option since it does not consume a
portion of dry product gas (sale gas) nor require any external stripping
gas that translates to saving in operating cost. It is followed by the
Coldfinger technology (Fig. 11) and the stripping gas process modified
with Stahl column (Fig. 9). These two processes can provide almost
identical purity on regenerated TEG, close to about 99.96 wt %. How-
ever, the stripping gas dehydration process modified with Stahl column
requires higher capital cost since it requires an additional column.
Lastly, our comparison assessment reveals that the stripping processes
using inert stripping gas (Fig. 6) or a portion of dry product gas (Fig. 7)
are the least preferred options because they provide the lowest purity
on regenerated TEG and generally produce high amount of BTEX
emission. As mentioned in Section 2.5, these two aforementioned pro-
cesses are also not economically favourable since they have high op-
erating cost due to the consumption of inert stripping gas that comes
externally or the profit generated is lower because of the consumption
of a portion of dry product gas (that is, sale gas).
3. Recent studies on natural gas dehydration
Following the enhanced regeneration processes that improves the
glycol (e.g., TEG) purity limit, we summarise next the recent studies on
natural gas dehydration that is carried out from 1991 to 2017. Notably,
due to the strong opposition in the natural gas industry towards im-
plementing new technologies, most of these recent studies were di-
rected towards optimising the existing processes rather than developing
the new ones. These studies can mainly be categorised into:
• BTEX emission control
• Correlation studies
• Simulation studies
• New technologies (e.g., membrane and supersonic technology)
These studies are selectively summarised in Table 6. BTEX emission
control involves studies performed in response to the environmental
concern. Correlation studies includes the selection of appropriate
thermodynamic model or the use of conservation principles (mass and
energy balance) to develop mathematical equations to achieve a

-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
specific goal (e.g., estimating water content in dry product gas). Si-
mulation studies covers most of the works that are performed in col-
laboration with industrial plant that assess the dehydration perfor-
mance. New technologies such as membrane and supersonic
technologies are introduced at the last part of this review. Their latest
development however will not be discussed since it has just been re-
cently discussed in other reviews (Dalane et al., 2017; Haghighi et al.,
2015).
3.1. BTEX emission control
As discussed in Section 1.3, several strategies are available that can
be adopted to the conventional dehydration process to control the BTEX
emission (Table 4). Notably, incineration has been widely applied to
eliminate BTEX gases. Condensation can also recover the BTEX gases
but at the cost of post-treating BTEX-containing water effluent. There-
fore, recent attempts have been focused more onto creating new process
design, optimising the existing process, and using alternative less-BTEX
absorbing solvent.
One of these recent studies involves the implementation of a BTEX
stripper that is installed between the flash tank and the regenerator
(Fig. 12). The BTEX stripper, originated from a patented technology by
Latoka Engineering, employed the flash vapour combined with a por-
tion of the dry product gas to strip off the BTEX gases in the rich TEG
stream coming from the absorber prior to the TEG regeneration process.
The overhead of the BTEX-containing stripper is subsequently used as a
fuel in the reboiler; further eliminating the BTEX emission problem
while saving reboiler fuel cost (Ebeling et al., 1998). However, the
BTEX stripper requires additional investment cost and higher energy
consumption cost. Following this, it may be more cost-effective to re-
duce the amount of BTEX absorbed initially since no additional
equipment (e.g., BTEX stripper) and lower energy consumption is
needed. This can be accomplished by using the lowest glycol circulation
rate possible or by using a less BTEX-absorbing glycol such as MEG and
DEG. However, MEG and DEG gave a higher glycol loss rate relative to
TEG. MEG and DEG processes thus require higher additional glycol
make-up, which leads to a higher operational cost. Given the conflicting
nature between the cost associated to the additional glycol make-up
and the cost needed to post-treating the BTEX gases emitted, it would
be interesting to further re-assess the dehydration system using dif-
ferent glycols in terms of technical and economic aspects. The effect of
different glycols on the treated gas quality should additionally be
considered. Other than the types of glycol and the circulation rate as-
sociated, another process parameter that significantly affects the BTEX
emission is the regenerator pressure. A higher regenerator pressure will
reduce the BTEX emission, as demonstrated in the work of Collie et al.
(1998). However, they highlighted that increasing the regenerator
pressure increases the water content in the solvent, which profoundly
affect the water specification in the dry product gas. Therefore, it is not
viable to increase the regenerator pressure since it may exceeds the
pipeline design requirements.
Braek et al. (2001) optimised the process parameters of the major
equipment (e.g., regenerator) on a dehydration plant located in Abu
Dhabi to reduce the BTEX emission. Their optimisation study revealed
that optimising the temperature and pressure of the flash tank does not
affect the BTEX emission intensely because most of the BTEX gases exist
as liquid within the rich glycol stream. Other process parameters that
has strong influence on the BTEX emission rate are the wet gas tem-
perature and the original BTEX composition in the wet gas. Never-
theless, these parameters are difficult to be controlled and is therefore
not a feasible emission control option. Eight years later on the same
plant located in Abu Dhabi, Darwish and Hilal (2008) performed sen-
sitivity analysis on several input parameters (e.g., stripping gas flow-
rate) and operating conditions (e.g., absorber temperature) that influ-
ence the absorber and regenerator performance. They found that the
stripping gas flowrate and the inlet TEG temperature exhibit a strong
Z.Y. Kong et al. -RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²

Table 6
Summaries of simulation data from recent studies.
Absorber specification Regenerator specification References

Pressure (kPa), Wet gas flowrate Pressure (kPa), Agent type Agent flowrate Regenerator type
Temperature (°C) (MMSCFD) Reboiler temperature (m3 hr−1)
(°C)

68951, 491 47 1011, 1601 & 2041 DEG, TEG 42 Conventional (Collie et al., 1998)
21031, 211 29.2 2141, 1791 MEG, 0.531 Stripping gas using dry product (Ebeling et al., 1998)
58611, 491 22 2141,1401 DEG, TEG 0.961 gas
3800-43001, 56-61 17.5 1101, 204 TEG 2 Stripping gas with Stahl column (Braek et al., 2001)
73201, 40 48.251 N/A TEG 12.781 Stripping gas (Kasiri and Hormozdi, 2005)
42611, 58–641 11 121, 2041 TEG 2.11 N/A (Darwish and Hilal, 2008)
3555, 40 250 N/A MEG, N/A Stripping gas (Abdulrahman and Sebastine, 2013)
DEG, TEG
6760-70601, 40-45 151 N/A TEG 13.58 Coldfinger (Rahimpour et al., 2013a,b)
42611, 58–641 11 101.31, 2041 TEG 2.11 Stripping gas with Stahl column (Darwish and Hilal, 2008;
Eldemerdash and Kamarudin, 2016;
Isa et al., 2013)
92001, 30 10 N/A TEG 3.5–25.47 Conventional (Anyadiegwu et al., 2014)
12748-127801, 51-60 2391 N/A, 200 TEG 4.91 Stripping gas (Jokar et al., 2014)
127481, 33-42 2371 N/A, 200 TEG 4.7961
3800-72301, 50–69.6 4911 1201, 133.5 DEG 9.10 Conventional (Rouzbahani et al., 2014)
12748-127801, 51-60 238.71 1201, 199 TEG 5.541 Stripping gas using dry product (Saidi et al., 2014)
gas and DRIZO modified with
Stahl column
62001, 30 10 N/A TEG 0.053–0.07 Conventional (Elendu et al., 2015)
7000, 54 201 6950, 60 TEG 21 N/A (El Mawgoud et al., 2015)
7000, 54 201 6950, 60 TEG 71
7000, 54 201 6950, 153 TEG 21
100001, 50 230 1011, 194 TEG 5.21 Stripping gas (Ranjbar et al., 2015)
6780, 58.2 1251 120, 165 TEG 71 Stripping with inert gas (Gad et al., 2016)
4080-4100,30 37.321 102, 175-204 TEG 32 Conventional and stripping gas (Neagu and Cursaru, 2017)
using dry product gas
101.31, 20 0.96201 51, 140 ILs 41 Conventional (Yu et al., 2017)
101.31, 20 0.96201 101.31, 204 TEG 41

1
Unit converted from other form (e.g., bar, psia, oF).
2
Unit reported in the form of gal of solvent per pound of water (gal solvent lb−1 water).
N/A refers to Not Available.

Fig. 12. BTEX stripper to reduce BTEX gases emission (Reproduced from (Ebeling et al., 1998)).

influence on the regenerator performance. The absorber performance,
on the other hand, is sensitive to the disturbance in operating pressure
and wet gas flowrate. Rouzbahani et al. (2014) presented an analogous
sensitivity analysis on the natural gas dehydration unit using DEG in
Iran. They examined the variations of wet gas flowrate, DEG flowrate,
DEG purity, and the water content in natural gas that affect the volatile
organic compounds (VOC) emission, water dew point in dry product
gas, DEG loss rate, and the total process duty. Their analysis revealed
that the VOC emission is extremely sensitive to the DEG flowrate fol-
lowed by the DEG purity. Moreover, the variation in the wet gas
flowrate and the water content in natural gas influence the DEG loss
rate more severely compared to the water dew point in dry product gas
and the total process duty. At the end of their study, they attempt to
optimise the whole dehydration process by taking the water dew point


Z.Y. Kong et al.
in natural gas as a main factor. Their optimisation result suggests that a
10% increase in the DEG flowrate further reduces the water dew point
in dry product gas by another 6%, without substantial increase in the
dehydration unit's total energy consumption and VOC emission.
Saidi et al. (2014) investigated the possibility of replacing the three
dehydration units originally operated by using stripping gas injection
with DRIZO process in the Farashband gas processing plant. The first
part of their study evaluates the effect of different stripping gases used
for DRIZO process on the dehydration performance. Among the strip-
ping gases studied are N-Heptane, Iso-Octane, BTEX gases, and an
equimolar mixture of N-Heptane and Iso-Octane. They showed that N-
Heptane alone gives the best dehydration performance with the lowest
BTEX emission rate. However, it is not clear how they have obtained the
N-heptane or the Iso-Octane solely from the gas mixture and used it as
stripping gas. They evaluated the dehydration performance based on
two different DRIZO configurations. The first configuration involves the
application of a single DRIZO process to each of the dehydration unit
whereas the second configuration integrates a complex DRIZO process
that combines the three dehydration units together. The former con-
figuration provides significant improvement in both the water dew
point and BTEX emission. This nonetheless was achieved at a higher
capital investment cost in comparison to the latter configuration.
Eldemerdash and Kamarudin (2016) demonstrated the usage of
chemically modified Mono-Ethylene Glycol (mMEG) that leads to al-
most zero BTEX emission while significantly improves the dehydration
performance. The application of mMEG requires no additional equip-
ment and the low temperature in the reboiler decreases the energy cost.
Nevertheless, the usage of mMEG leads to higher glycol loss rate, which
is the similar disadvantage of using MEG and DEG as solvent. Further
studies that takes the glycol loss rate into account are therefore re-
commended.
3.2. Correlations
One of the most productive research groups that has been actively
working to develop new correlation on the area of natural gas dehy-
dration is Bahadori's group. Their group has published a few works on
the past decade, some of which are cited within this paper (Bahadori
et al., 2008; Bahadori and Vuthaluru, 2009a, 2009b). For example, in
2008, Bahadori's group proposed a new correlation for determining the
solubility of light alkanes (e.g., Methane, Ethane, and Propane) and
acid gases (e.g., H2S) in TEG. They showed that an increase in the ab-
sorber pressure and the TEG flowrate or a decrease in the absorber
temperature increases the solubility of light alkanes and acid gases in
TEG (Bahadori et al., 2008). The following year, Bahadori and
Vuthaluru (2009b) formulated a simple algebraic equations for sizing of
the absorber at a wide range of operating conditions. Their proposed
methodology correlates the TEG circulation rate, TEG purity, water
removal efficiency, number of equilibrium stages, and diameter of the
absorber. Such unique expression is simple to use compared to the
conventional simulation approaches which involve rigorous and time-
consuming calculations and plotting of graphs. On the same year,
Bahadori and Vuthaluru (2009a) devised another simple-to-use corre-
lation that can rapidly estimate the equilibrium dew point of water in
natural gas stream based on the operating temperature and TEG purity.
Their proposed correlation involves no complex expression with
transparent calculations, which allows process engineer to do quick
check on equilibrium water dew point of natural gas. In 2014, Baha-
dori's group developed an intelligent model to predict the TEG purity as
a function of reboiler pressure and temperature by means of the well-
proven standard feed-forward back-propagation neural network (Ghiasi
et al., 2014). Their proposed technique reproduces the literature data
with average absolute deviation of about 0.30%, which highlights the
accuracy and the capability of their presented neural-based model to
estimate the TEG purity. Nevertheless, they have not investigated the
solubility of BTEX gases in different glycols and to formulate a

-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
correlation for sizing the regenerator. Further studies can be carried out
that take these gaps into account.
Apart from Bahadori's group, other researchers also developed a few
mathematical models that are worth mentioning. For instance, Akpa
et al. (2013) performed material and energy balance on the absorber
unit to predict the water content in natural gas across the absorber and
the temperature variance between the natural gas and the TEG across
the packing height of the absorber. Their proposed model was solved by
applying Laplace transform technique to obtain an analytical solution.
Their proposed model was applied on an industrial dehydration unit
located in Nigeria and the results validation revealed that the proposed
model accurately predicted the amount of water in the natural gas
stream with a deviation of 0%. In the following year, Dagde and Akpa
(2014) solved an analogous model by integrating it numerically using
the finite divided difference scheme method that is incorporated into
the MATLAB code. Identical to their previous work, the accuracy of
their numerical model was verified by applying the model onto an in-
dustrial TEG unit located in Nigeria. Their simulation results reveal that
the proposed model accurately predicts the amount of water content in
natural gas with a deviation of 8.65%, albeit to a slightly larger extent
relative to their previous work.
Other studies that involve the development of new correlation in-
cludes the work of Gandhidasan (2003) where they proposed new
mathematical equations to estimate the TEG circulation rate, the ab-
sorber inner diameter, and the number of trays required by the absorber
to achieve the required sale gas (dry product gas) specifications. Re-
lative to the conventional use of charts and table which can be very
time-consuming, the proposed mathematical equations can be written
into computer program to minimise the calculation time. Twu et al.
(2005) developed a methodology that employs the Twu-Sim-Tassone
(abbreviated as TST) cubic equation of state to determine the water dew
point and the water content in the natural gas stream.
Jokar et al. (2014) investigated the possibility to replace the existing
trays in the absorption column by structured packing through simu-
lating the Farashand gas dehydration unit located in Iran. Their simu-
lation results revealed that structured packing not only lower the water
dew point in dry product gas but also give significant improvement to
the other parameters on the dehydration performance. They also show
that it is economically justifiable to revamp the existing tray column
with structured packing in the Farashband gas processing plant. No-
tably, structured packing also proves more superior over the conven-
tional random packing given its better mass transfer control, higher gas
capacity, and lower pressure drop (Dagde and Akpa, 2014; Elsarrag,
2006; Kean et al., 1991; Olujić et al., 2015; Shilkin and Kenig, 2006).
More essential is the fact that structured packing can achieve a specific
TEG purity at a lower reboiler temperature, thereby eliminating the fuel
cost associated to increase the reboiler temperature (Farahmand et al.,
2011).
3.3. Simulation studies
Kasiri and Hormozdi (2005) probed the influential factors such as
the temperature and flowrate of TEG entering the absorber and the
number of stages in absorber that affect the effectiveness of the water-
absorption performance. Their study demonstrate that increasing the
temperature and the flowrate of TEG entering the absorber and/or in-
creasing the number of stages in the absorber increase the water ab-
sorption rate. Their result was verified later by an analogous study
presented by Arubi and Duru (2008) where they additionally in-
vestigated the effect of the reboiler temperature and the stripping gas
flowrate on the dehydration performance. Their result indicated that it
is possible to use a lower reboiler temperature (e.g., 190 °C) to re-
generate the TEG up to a similar purity to that being regenerated using
a standard reboiler temperature (that is 200 °C). This however requires
additional stages in the absorber. At present, it is not clear if the re-
duction in the operating cost associated to the lower reboiler
Z.Y. Kong et al.
temperature is traded-off by an increase in the capital cost from in-
stalling additional stages in the absorber. Thus, future study that
evaluates the economic aspect of the plant is warranted.
Baktash et al. (2010) employed the use of volatile hydrocarbon li-
quid (that is Toluene & Iso-Octane) as stripping agent to improve the
TEG purity on Farashband gas dehydration plant located in Iran. Their
simulation was compared against the conventional dehydration process
using stripping gas and their simulation results demonstrate that using
hydrocarbon liquid as stripping gas enables the enhancement of the
TEG purity while reducing the TEG loss rate to the environment. They
have however not demonstrated how to separate Toluene and/or Iso-
Octane from the volatile hydrocarbon mixture (e.g., mixture of To-
luene + Iso-octane + BTEX gases). Additional cost associated to the
separation may add burden to the operational cost in dehydration plant.
Among the two solvents studied, Iso-octane displayed a better TEG
regeneration performance in comparison to Toluene. They additionally
validated their simulation with the previous experimental studies,
which highlight the accuracy of their results (Mostafazadeh et al., 2009;
Paymooni et al., 2011).
Isa et al. (2013) simulated three natural gas dehydration processes
based on an industrial dehydration unit located in United Arab Emirates
(UAE). The dehydration processes are the conventional dehydration
process, the stripping gas dehydration process modified with Stahl
column, and DRIZO process. They assessed the performance of these
dehydration units based on the water dew point and the water content
in dry product gas. They additionally constructed the phase envelope
diagram to investigate the behaviour of water dew point curve. Their
simulation results revealed that DRIZO process shows the most sig-
nificant improvement on the water dew point and water content in dry
product gas, followed by the stripping gas dehydration process mod-
ified with Stahl column and the conventional dehydration process. This
is since the purity of the regenerated TEG in the DRIZO process is the
highest in comparison to the other two employed processes. At the end
of their study, they proposed the addition of Potassium Formate into the
TEG solution as a new method to improve the absorption capacity of
TEG and subsequently enhance the water vapour removal rate in the
dehydration process. However, they have not explained the reason
behind selecting Potassium Formate. Their simulation results reveal
that the addition of Potassium Formate improves the TEG-water ab-
sorption capacity by 2–3 times. Such improvement nonetheless was
achieved at an expense of an increase in the BTEX-absorption rate. Also,
the addition of Potassium Formate further leads to an increase in the
operational cost since it has to be introduced externally. At this point, it
is still unclear if the addition of Potassium Formate is more superior
over the well-established dehydration process (e.g., DRIZO process).
Further efforts must be directed towards solving the BTEX absorption
issues and to assess the economic impact of such proposed metho-
dology. Experimental work to further validate the present simulation
works is also warranted.
Rahimpour et al. (2013a,b) simulated a Coldfinger unit for TEG
regeneration and assessed the influence of stripping gas flowrate,
stripping gas temperature, and the Coldfinger pressure on the TEG re-
generation performance. Their simulation results indicate that an in-
crease in stripping gas flowrate and temperature and/or a decrease in
Coldfinger pressure favours the TEG regeneration performance. Our
literature survey indicates that only a handful of studies have been
performed to simulate the Coldfinger unit for natural gas dehydration
(Øi and Tyvand Selstø, 2002; Piemonte et al., 2012; Rahimpour et al.,
2013a,b). This is due to the lack of Coldfinger unit in the steady state
simulation software, which makes the simulation difficult. Further ex-
ploration in this area is therefore recommended.
Abdulrahman and Sebastine (2013) assessed the use of different
glycols to dehydrate natural gas that comes from Khurmala gas dome in
the Southwest Erbil-Kurdistan region. Their simulation results demon-
strate that TEG removes the largest amount of water followed by DEG
and MEG. Likewise, TEG also absorbs more hydrocarbon relative to

-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
DEG and MEG; leading to a higher hydrocarbon loss rate. In view of
maximising the water removal rate while minimising the hydrocarbon
loss rate, they suggest DEG as the best solvent candidates. Anyadiegwu
et al. (2014) utilised operational data from a natural gas dehydration
plant in Nigeria to probe the amount of water removed by absorption
using different TEG flowrates. They found an optimum TEG flowrate,
beyond which no significant additional profit can be generated from the
dry product gas but leads to the absorber flooding and the liquid carry-
over. They also performed hydrate formation analysis on all TEG
flowrate simulated and ruled out the possibility of hydrate formation.
This is since the hydrate formation temperature is well below the dry
gas temperature. However, their hydrate formation analysis was
nonetheless based on the operating condition of the plant. Other op-
erating condition scenarios (e.g., higher pressure) may influence their
deduction on hydrate formation. Elendu et al. (2015) presented an
analogous study that examined the effect of different TEG flowrates on
the dehydration performance that is sourced from SPDC in South-South
Nigeria.
Ranjbar et al. (2015) presented an interesting paper that determines
the optimum values for the TEG flowrate and the absorber temperature
by means of relative sensitivity function (RSF). The determined op-
timum values were implemented into a simulation model to optimise
the entire dehydration process. Their optimisation results demonstrated
that RSF is a very effective methodology that can be applied to mini-
mise the reboiler duty, TEG flowrate, and the water content in dry
product gas. In fact, only a few studies have been conducted on natural
gas dehydration by means of sensitivity analysis (Darwish and Hilal,
2008; Ranjbar et al., 2015; Rouzbahani et al., 2014) and there is still an
abundant room for further progress in this area.
Gad et al. (2016) replaced nitrogen with a portion of dry product
gas as stripping gas for TEG regeneration. Their techno-economic
analysis shows that using a portion of dry product gas as stripping gas
leads to significant savings in operational cost because no external
stripping gas is required. Nevertheless, they have not demonstrated the
profit comparison for the two systems. Since they utilise a portion of the
dry product gas as the stripping gas, less dry product gas becomes
available for sale. This most likely leads to the reduction of the profit in
such dehydration system. Neagu and Cursaru (2017) presented an
analogous study where they performed techno-economic analysis on
the dehydration process using a portion of dry product gas as stripping
gas against the conventional dehydration process. They reported that
the dehydration process using stripping gas can increase the TEG purity
without imposing substantial additional capital cost. They have how-
ever neglected the profit evaluation in their economic analysis. No-
tably, other stripping gases alternative are available (e.g., BTEX gases)
as presented in Section 2.1.5. Instead of using the dry product gas as
stripping gas, these BTEX gases can also be exploited to minimise the
profit reduction.
In the recent years, Ionic Liquids (abbreviated as ILs) have become
increasingly popular for dehydration applications given its dis-
tinguished physicochemical properties such as high thermal and che-
mical stability, high hygroscopicity, non-flammability, and low melting
point (Yu et al., 2017). More essential is the fact that ILs have higher
water affinity relative to the conventional TEG. Likewise, ILs have a
better regeneration capability given its negligible vapour pressure at
room temperature, which simplifies the regeneration process such that
almost pure ILs can be obtained simply by using a flash tank. ILs also
provide negligible solvent loss and savings in energy consumption, as
reported in a previous study (Yu et al., 2017). Furthermore, no foaming
problems have so far been reported on the use of ILs. For these reasons,
many researchers propose the use of ILs as a promising green solvent to
replace traditional solvent used in conventional dehydration processes
(Bowman, 2000; Heym et al., 2010; Yu et al., 2017). However, further
work in this area is required to further support the beneficial solidity of
using ILs and to overturn the present market preference on the current
well-established conventional dehydration process using TEG.
Z.Y. Kong et al.
3.4. New technologies
3.4.1. Membrane technologies
Membrane technologies has gained its significant foothold in nat-
ural gas industry ever since it was first used to remove carbon dioxide in
the 1980s. Today, it is widely used in the natural gas processing facil-
ities such as for the natural gas sweetening and heavy hydrocarbon
recovery (Hubbard, 1991). A few natural gas dehydration units oper-
ating using membrane technologies has also been reported (May-Britt,
1998). In comparison to the conventional dehydration process using
TEG, membrane technologies is more environmental friendly and en-
ergy-efficient since it does not requires any additional solvents and/or
chemicals (Liu et al., 2001). More essential is the fact that it requires
much less space and can be operated continuously without the need for
regeneration; making it suitable for unmanned operation (that is off-
shore) (Lin et al., 2013; Ohlrogge and Brinkmann, 2003). However, the
bottleneck of membrane technologies is the methane loss rate, which
cannot be avoided due to the pressure ratio limitations which restricts
the membrane ability to compete with the well-established TEG dehy-
dration units (Koros and Mahajan, 2000). The pressure ratio in the
separation of gas mixtures can be explained by considering two dif-
ferent gas component with concentration of m and n at a feed pressure
of p. The flow of one gas component (e.g., n) across the membrane will
only occur if the partial pressure of the component on the feed side
(e.g., nopo) is greater than the partial pressure of gas component on the
permeate side (e.g., nipi) of the membrane, as shown in Equation (4).
n o po > ni pi (4)
From Equation (4), it follows that the maximum separation of gas
component n can be expressed as
po n technique can be polymeric or inorganic. Polymeric membrane is
> i
pi no (5)
Following this, the gas separation can never exceed the pressure
p
ratio of po , regardless of the membrane selectivity. This bottleneck has
i
restricted the membrane technologies ability to compete with the well-
established TEG dehydration units (Koros and Mahajan, 2000).
Various membrane materials have been studied for natural gas de-
hydration application such as polymeric membrane and inorganic
membrane. Polymeric membrane provides high H2O permeability and
H2O/CH4 selectivity relative to the other compounds (e.g., CO2) that
are present in the natural gas stream. Therefore, when the natural gas
stream passes through the membrane, water vapour is removed along
with some of the other compounds (e.g., CO2) (Liu et al., 2001). In-
organic membrane material also demonstrates similar advantages but
only under laboratory condition. Its fabrication cost is significantly
higher than that of the polymeric membrane.
Fig. 13(a) shows a simple process flow diagram for a one-stage
membrane dehydration system that removes 90% of the water in the
wet gas; producing a permeate gas that accounts for 4–5% of the initial
wet gas flow. Notably, the methane loss rate through the permeate
cannot be avoided due to the pressure ratio limitation as explained
earlier. Therefore, several other configurations have been devised such
as using a compressor to recompress the permeate gas (Fig. 13(b)).
However, this will increase the capital cost of the membrane-dehy-
dration system. Another alternative is to use a portion of the dry pro-
duct gas as sweep gas (Fig. 13(c)). The sweep gas essentially reduces the
membrane area and the methane loss rate to 1–2% of the wet gas.
Accordingly, a secondary methane drying loop can also be considered
to produce a clean and dry methane to be used as sweep gas
(Fig. 13(d)). This reduces the methane loss rate down to 1%. However,
the complexity of such customised system limits its application to re-
latively large dehydration plants.
In the recent years, tremendous efforts have been directed towards
exploring the potential of membrane for natural gas dehydration
(Basafa and Pourafshari Chenar, 2014; Lin et al., 2013, 2012; Liu et al.,

-RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²
2001). However, it is less likely that membrane technologies will
dominate the market share in the near future due to the well-estab-
lished TEG dehydration process that are too cheap for membrane
technologies to compete in all but the most marginal situations. Further
research and development on process design is needed, especially on
the hybrid systems to generate a more competitive process.
Membrane technologies can optionally be applied on the glycol
regeneration section alone instead of the entire natural gas dehydration
process. It regenerates the glycol following the pervaporation process
(that is combination of evaporation and permeation process) where the
rich TEG that flows through the membrane will exit the retentate side as
the lean TEG and the water evaporate and permeate through the
membrane (Bowen et al., 2004). This process essentially follows the
identical membrane mechanism that was explained earlier except that
there is a phase change involved when the water travel across the
membrane and leaves as permeate. The driving force, that is the dif-
ference in partial pressure over the membrane, can be maximised by
using a sweep gas on the permeate side to achieve lower vapour pres-
sure, a vacuum pump, and/or by condensation (Shao and Huang,
2007). The use of water-selective membrane maximises the separation
(that is regeneration) efficiency. Pervaporation process also requires
less energy in comparison to the regeneration column in conventional
dehydration process (that is distillation column) because the phase
change in pervaporation only involves minor component in the liquid
mixture (e.g., water in TEG). As a result, pervaporation process has
been considered as one of the most cost-effective liquid separation
technologies (Baker, 2000). Today, commercial pervaporation process
are available such as the removal of water from organic solvent and
volatile organic compounds from water (Baker, 2000; Bowen et al.,
2004; Shao and Huang, 2007). The membranes used for pervaporation
usually preferred due to its low cost and simple production method.
Alternatively, mixed matrix membranes can also be considered as they
combine the advantages of both polymeric and inorganic membranes
(Scholes et al., 2012).
There is still an abundant room for further progress to incorporate
pervaporation technique into natural gas dehydration application. For
example, since pervaporation technique has been used to remove vo-
latile organic compounds from water, it may be used to post-treat the
BTEX-containing effluent from natural gas dehydration plant.
3.4.2. Supersonic separator
Supersonic separator is another relatively new technology that has
recently gained its popularity in natural gas dehydration application
(Karimi and Abdi, 2009; Niknam et al., 2017; Wen et al., 2011). It
couples both condensation and separation process in a simple device,
which is concurrently used to achieve water and hydrocarbon dew
point control along with enhanced Natural-Gas-Liquid (NGL) extraction
(Machado et al., 2012). The mechanism behind supersonic separator is
very similar to that of turbo expander, which combines expansion, gas/
liquid cyclone separation, and gas re-compression in a compact tubular
device (Fig. 14). The supersonic separator nonetheless transforms
pressure to kinetic energy (that is supersonic velocity) to achieve a
temperature drop instead of transforming the pressure to shaft power as
in the turbo expander case (Brouwer and Epsom, n.d.). In comparison to
the conventional dehydration plant, supersonic separator is smaller,
lighter, cheaper, and more environmental friendly. It also contains no
rotating part; making it a simple facility suitable for unmanned op-
eration (that is offshore) (Wen et al., 2011).
In the past two decades, a number of researches have been per-
formed on the use of supersonic separator for natural gas dehydration
application. A review work by Haghighi et al. (2015) that provides a
detailed discussion on these latest development can be referred to. They
compiled about 88 papers, of which 15 papers are associated with ex-
perimental works, 33 papers are works related to numerical modelling,
9 papers deal with mathematical modelling of the supersonic separator
Z.Y. Kong et al. -RXUQDORI1DWXUDO*DV6FLHQFHDQG(QJLQHHULQJ²

Fig. 13. Four different membrane-dehydration process configuration; (a) Single stage membrane process; (b) Single stage membrane process modified with recycled
permeate; (c) Single stage membrane process modified with sweep gas; and (d) Single stage membrane process modified with secondary methane drying loop
(Reproduced from (Baker, 2002)).

Fig. 14. Schematic diagram for supersonic separator (Reproduced from (Brouwer and Epsom, n.d.)).


Z.Y. Kong et al.
and finally, a few other associated studies related to supersonic gas
processing technology.
Despite being a relatively new technology, extensive operating ex-
perience has already been obtained through commercial scale test units
since 1998 on different plants located in Netherlands, Nigeria, and
Norway. This technology has also been used in Malaysia since 2003 for
dehydration process. The first two 300 MMSCFD supersonic-dehydra-
tion units was installed on the B11 platform offshore in Malaysia op-
erated by Petronas and Sarawak Shell Berhad (SSB) (Brouwer and
Epsom, n.d.). These units were proven to be viable for natural gas
conditioning to typical pipeline specification especially for unmanned
operations (Brouwer and Epsom, n.d.). However, further investigation
must be made to understand the characteristics of natural gas under
supersonic flow conditions (Wen et al., 2016).
4. Conclusion
We have covered the diverse processes available to improve the
regenerated glycol (e.g. TEG) purity limit in natural gas dehydration.
For each of these enhanced processes, we have presented their process
flow diagram and elaborated their mechanism, advantages, dis-
advantages, and their current statuses. Our comparison assessment es-
tablishes that DRIZO process scores the highest (9 out of 9) because it is
the most economical option that provides the highest purity on the
regenerated glycol (e.g., TEG) with the least BTEX emission relative to
all other enhanced processes. It is followed by the Coldfinger tech-
nology and the stripping gas process modified with Stahl column with
score of 7 and 6 out of 9, respectively. The conventional stripping
processes using a portion of dry product gas or inert stripping gas
however are the least preferred with a score of 5 and 4 out of 9, re-
spectively. This was mainly attributed to the purity limitation on re-
generated glycol (e.g. TEG) and the high amount of emitted BTEX.
Following this, we compiled the relevant works related to natural gas
dehydration using TEG that were published between 1991 and 2017,
and highlighted the existing gaps in these studies as recommendations
for future work. We concluded our review by giving a brief overview on
the recently emerging membrane and supersonic technologies for nat-
ural gas dehydration. These technologies however may not be com-
mercially applicable in the near future because of the well-established
TEG dehydration process. Further research and development should be
directed towards process design, especially on the hybrid systems of
both conventional and new technologies, to generate a more competi-
tive process economically and technically.
Acknowledgements
Zong Yang Kong gratefully acknowledges Full Fee-Waiver
Studentship provided by Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak
Campus.
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As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, several additional works of interest that are published
between 2018 and 2021 are discussed here for completeness sake. Most of these work focus on
techno-economic analysis for the natural gas dehydration via absorption using TEG.

Salman et al. (2020) analysed the conventional dehydration process and the stripping gas
dehydration process using a portion of the dry product gas. They attempted to optimise both
processes by evaluating the sensitivity of the water content in the dry product gas, the reboiler duty,
and the TEG loss rate against the TEG circulation rate and the stripping gas flowrate. After that,
both optimised processes were compared based on their performance to meet a specified value of
water content in the dry product gas. The stripping gas dehydration process was found to require
42% lower TEG flowrate and the associated reboiler duty was also lower by about 42%, which
subsequently leads to the sharp decrease in the annual operating cost by about 38%. Although the
stripping gas dehydration process consumed a portion of the dry product gas, they pointed out that
the cost associated to the stripping gas is very minimal in comparison to the reduction in the annual
operating cost. In terms of the total capital cost, there is no significant difference between the two
dehydration processes, in agreement with previous finding (Neagu and Cursaru, 2017). Other
than the conventional techno-economic analysis available in the existing literature, Li et al. (2019)
presented an interesting work that accounts for the environmental assessment for shale gas
dehydration. They proposed a framework for evaluating the conventional dehydration process and
stripping gas dehydration process from economic and environmental perspective. The
environmental assessment here involves a hybrid life cycle inventory (LCI) model to evaluate the
environmental impacts on shale gas dehydration. It was found that the dehydration process with
lower TEG purity ranging in between 99.00% to 99.05% and greater number of trays (e.g., more
than 7 stages) will result in a fewer pollutant and lower environmental index. Overall, an optimum
dehydration process with 7 theoretical stages and a TEG purity of 99.05% was found to balance
the economic and environmental performance. Another interesting work was presented by
Affandy et al. (2020) where they attempt to improve the conventional dehydration process by
recycling the flash vapour into the reboiler of the TEG regeneration column and used it as a
stripping gas. They reported that consuming the flash vapour as a stripping gas reduces the overall
TEG flowrate needed for the dehydration plant and reduces the reboiler duty by about 36.2%. This
translates to a significant reduction in the Total Annual Cost (TAC) by about 20% for the whole

26
dehydration process. However, the improvement in the TEG purity from 98.6% to 98.8%, in my
opinion, is not significant and other stripping gases such as BTEX gases or a portion of the dry
product gas should be considered especially in countries that specify a lower water content limit.

Petropoulou et al. (2019) targeted to minimise the energy consumption of the dehydration plant
by performing sensitivity analysis on several operational parameters such as the stripping gas
flowrate, the reboiler temperature, the regenerator pressure, the water-rich TEG temperature that
enters the regenerator, the surge drum temperature, and the operating temperature and pressure of
the absorber. They found that increasing the surge drum operating temperature and pre-heating the
rich TEG to a higher temperature prior to entering the regeneration column, leads to a lower water
content in the dry product gas while significantly reduces the reboiler duty of the regeneration
column. This translates to a lower operating cost for the overall dehydration process. Other than
sensitivity analysis, they also additionally investigated two thermodynamic models, i.e., the UMR-
PRU and the TST/NRTL model and reported that both models predicted similar effect on the
operational parameters variation considered. It is worth noting that UMR-PRU model in particular
can predict higher water and TEG solubility in methane vapour phase, which is closer to the
experimental data, relative to the TST/NRTL model. However, further simulation studies are
recommended to further validate the UMR-PRU model since my literature survey has indicated
that this is the only existing study that employed the UMR-PRU thermodynamic model for natural
gas dehydration. Chebbi et al. (2019) performed optimisation using Aspen HYSYS to minimise
both capital and operating cost by manipulating the TEG circulation rate, numbers of theoretical
trays in both absorber and regeneration column, wet gas inlet pressure and temperature, wet gas
flow rate, stripping gas flowrate, and two different gas price levels. Three different configurations
were investigated, i.e., conventional dehydration process, stripping gas dehydration process using
a portion of the dry product gas injected directly into the reboiler, and stripping gas dehydration
process using a portion of dry product gas injected into the regeneration column. Overall, they did
not recommend operating the absorber at extremely high pressure unless the wet gas feed pressure
is high. When the wet gas feed pressure is low, it will require additional compression and cooling,
which translates to a higher capital and operating cost. They also highlighted that absorber should
be operated at low temperature, similar to the temperature of the wet gas inlet, otherwise cooling
may be necessary prior to the absorption process, which may increase the overall cost of the

27
dehydration process. Ani et al. (2021) propose the use of multi objective optimisation (MOO) for
reducing the CO2 emission while minimising the overall energy consumption of the natural gas
dehydration plant. They considered 2 different bi-objective (i.e., 2 objectives) and 1 tri-objective
(i.e., 3 objectives) cases, i.e., minimise the CO2 emission and water content in the dry product gas,
minimise the energy consumption and the water content in the dry product gas, and minimise the
CO2 emission, the water content in the dry product gas, and the energy consumption of the overall
dehydration plant. They highlighted the conflict between the water content in the dry product gas
and the energy consumption caused by the reboiler temperature. For instance, when the reboiler
temperature of case (ii) presented in their study increases, the water content in the dry product
gases decreases, but at an expense of an increase in the reboiler duty. Such finding is in agreement
with previous study (Neagu and Cursaru, 2017). The most interesting part of their study is the
additional column placed after the TEG regeneration column, known as the “polishing column”.
Such column is otherwise known as the “Stahl column” I presented in my review paper, although
is not commonly presented in the existing literature. The addition of such column reduces water
content in dry product gas in all the three cases considered while lowering the CO2 emission and
overall reboiler duty.

In summary, several research gaps were identified to provide insights for future work that focuses
mainly on techno-economic analysis for natural gas dehydration via absorption:

1. Existing studies have shown that the injection of two different stripping gases (e.g.,
nitrogen or a portion of dry product gas) into the regeneration column helps to improve the
TEG regeneration performance. However, no existing studies, at the time this thesis was
written, have taken into consideration the cost incurred for the injection of stripping gas.
For instance, the consumption of nitrogen gas as stripping gas requires the nitrogen gas to
be purchased externally, further imposing additional operational cost. The use of a portion
of dry product gas, on the other hand, reduces the revenue (i.e., gross profit) of the
dehydration plant since less amount of dry product gas becomes available for sale. So far,
no study have attempted to compare all the stripping gas dehydration processes using
different stripping gas sources from techno-economic perspective and taken into account

28
 the cost incurred for using the stripping gas. Such problem can be addressed by adding the
net profit factor into the techno-economic analysis.
2. As described in the literature review, DRIZO process is another suitable alternative for
obtaining enhanced TEG regeneration performance without consuming the externally
injected nitrogen gas or a portion of dry product gas as stripping gas. Nevertheless, DRIZO
process requires extra capital cost due to the additional equipment required such as a three-
phase separator, a pump, and a heat exchanger, relative to the other stripping gas processes.
Therefore, it is not clear whether DRIZO process has higher economic potential in
comparison to the other types of stripping processes. To date, no previous study has ever
performed the economic analysis that compares DRIZO process against stripping processes
using inert gas and/or a portion of dry product gas.
3. My literature survey also indicated that there is very limited literature information available
on Stahl column. Further comparison is required between the Stahl column process and the
conventional stripping processes, especially in terms of techno-economical aspects. Most
of the studies on Stahl column focus on using a portion of the dry product gas to improve
the purity of the regenerated TEG. It is also not clear what are the impact of injecting other
types of stripping gases (e.g., inert gas like nitrogen or the volatile hydrocarbon gases like
BTEX gases) into the Stahl column.

29
Chapter 3. Parametric study of different recycling configurations on
conventional natural gas dehydration process

This chapter has two research contributions, both of which focus on the conventional dehydration
process via absorption using TEG. The first contribution is the effect of TEG flowrate against the
water content in the dry product gas, the TEG loss rate, and the BTEX (i.e., benzene, toluene,
ethylbenzene, and xylene) emission. My literature survey in Chapter 2 has indicated that the
existing simulation works focus on either the relationship between the water content in the dry
product gas and the TEG loss rate or the relationship between the water content in the dry product
gas and the BTEX emission. Therefore, this chapter aims to consider all these three parameters
simultaneously and determine an optimum TEG flowrate that provides minimum water content in
the dry product gas with minimum TEG loss rate and BTEX emission.

The second research contribution in this chapter is the effect of recycling the flash vapour and the
regenerator overhead into the absorber, using the optimum flowrate determined earlier. Such
recycling configuration was first mentioned in the work of Neagu & Cursaru (2017) where they
performed techno-economic analysis on natural gas dehydration process by absorption using TEG.
Nonetheless, they have not demonstrated the recycling configuration simulation in their work.
Such recycling configuration is perhaps aimed to attain more sustainable design through reducing
waste (i.e., recovering the wet gas loss and the TEG loss rate) and lowering the environmental
pollution (i.e., minimising the BTEX emission).

This chapter was published as a research paper in Process Integration and Optimization for
Sustainability:
Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2018. A parametric study of different recycling
configurations for the natural gas dehydration process via absorption using triethylene glycol.
Process Integr Optim Sustain. 1. doi:10.1007/s41660-018-0058-x

30
Process Integration and Optimization for Sustainability
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41660-018-0058-x

SHORT TECHNICAL NOTE

A Parametric Study of Different Recycling Configurations for the Natural

Gas Dehydration Process Via Absorption Using Triethylene Glycol
Zong Yang Kong 1 & Ahmed Mahmoud 1 & Shaomin Liu 2 & Jaka Sunarso 1

Received: 9 April 2018 / Revised: 30 May 2018 / Accepted: 5 July 2018

# Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

Abstract
In this work, the effect of triethylene glycol (TEG) flowrate on the water content in dry product gas, the TEG loss rate, and the
BTEX (i.e. benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) emission of a conventional natural gas dehydration process via absorp-
tion using TEG were evaluated. Given the conflicting nature of decreasing water content against increasing BTEX emission and
TEG loss rate with increasing TEG flowrate, an optimum TEG flowrate was determined that gives the minimum water content in
dry product gas with minimum TEG loss rate and BTEX emission. The possibility of improving the dehydration process
performance was additionally investigated through recycling the flash vapour or the regenerator overhead or both the flash
vapour and the regenerator overhead into the absorber. The aforementioned recycling configurations aim towards sustainable
design for a natural gas dehydration process that provides a lower BTEX emission and TEG loss rate (i.e. plant’s wastage). These
recycling configurations were also evaluated based on economic analysis. Our simulation results however revealed that the TEG
loss rate is only reduced by 0.4% in all three different configurations. The reduction in water content, on the other hand, is always
traded-off by the increase in the total BTEX emission and vice versa, by marginal amount, relative to the base case scenario.
Therefore, applying such configuration does not contribute towards sustainable design and significant process performance
improvement despite requiring substantial additional capital and operational costs.

Keywords Aspen-Hysys . BTEX emissions . Dehydration . Glycol regeneration . Natural gas . Triethylene glycol

Introduction corrosion, and possibly pipeline rupture (Kidnay et al. 2011).

Dehydration has been widely used to remove water from raw
natural gas (wet gas) that emerges from the wellhead since it
contains water that can cause hydrate formation in the
transporting pipelines (Piemonte et al. 2012). Hydrate forma-
tion in these pipelines may lead to pipeline plugging and/or
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(https://doi.org/10.1007/s41660-018-0058-x) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
* Ahmed Mahmoud
mahmod_gu@yahoo.com; melhadi@swinburne.edu.my
* Jaka Sunarso
barryjakasunarso@yahoo.com; jsunarso@swinburne.edu.my
1
Research Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of
Engineering, Computing and Science, Swinburne University of
Technology, Jalan Simpang Tiga, 93350 Kuching, Sarawak,
Malaysia
2
Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University,
Perth, WA 6845, Australia
Such event is undesirable given the resultant environmental
consequences such as fire break out, air quality reduction, and
gas exposure to the surroundings flora and fauna (Sonibare et
al. 2010). Moreover, water vapour presence in natural gas prod-
uct may also reduce the combustion efficiency and induce the
blockage of valve fittings, compression system, process equip-
ment and instrumentation, especially when CO2 and H2S are
also present in the gas (Gong et al. 2010). Therefore, the water
content in natural gas has been strictly regulated, the limit of
which differs from country to country. For example, the water
content in natural gas in the USA should not exceed 7 lb of
water per million standard cubic feet of gas (lb MMSCF−1). In a
colder place like Alaska, a lower water content limit is speci-
fied, i.e. between 1 and 2 lb MMSCF−1 (Mokhatab et al. 2015).
The water content in natural gas can also be indicated in terms
of the water dew point, i.e., the temperature at which water
begins to condense. Europe, for example, applies a water dew
point requirement of 8 °C at 70 bar for its pipeline-transported
natural gas (Bahadori 2014). Compliance with these specified
limits provides assurance against hydrate formation during

winter. As such, dehydration has become one of the most im-
portant processes in the natural gas purification facility.
Several conventional processes can be used to dehydrate
natural gas such as absorption, adsorption, and refrigeration;
the detailed discussion of which are given elsewhere (Netusil
and Ditl 2011). Advanced technology-based dehydration pro-
cesses that employ membrane and supersonic gas processing
are also available (Dalane et al. 2017; Haghighi et al. 2015;
Machado et al. 2012; Scholes et al. 2012). Among these pro-
cesses, absorption using glycol is the most established one,
which has been used in the industry for decades (Bahadori
2014). TEG in particular has become the glycol of choice given
its regeneration capability, high water affinity, high chemical
stability, hygroscopicity, low vapour pressure, low evaporation
loss rate and low thermal degradation rate in the regeneration
column (i.e. water removal unit) (Bahadori et al. 2008).
Over the past decade, several important simulation studies
have been performed on natural gas dehydration by absorption
using TEG. Abdulrahman and Sebastine (2013) evaluated the
suitability of using different glycols to dehydrate natural gas
that comes from Khurmala gas dome in the Southwest Erbil-
Kurdistan region. Their simulation results showed that TEG
removes the largest amount of water followed by di-ethylene
glycol (DEG), and mono-ethylene glycol (MEG). TEG also
absorbs more hydrocarbon compared to DEG and MEG, thus
providing the highest hydrocarbon loss rate. In the perspective
of maximising the water removal rate while minimising the
hydrocarbon loss rate, DEG is the best solvent candidate.
Anyadiegwu et al. (2014) determined the amount of water
removed in the natural gas dehydration by absorption using
different TEG flowrates. Their simulation utilised operational
data from a gas treatment plant in Nigeria. They highlighted
the existence of an optimum TEG flowrate, beyond which no
significant additional profit can manifest from the dry product
gas and leads to absorber flooding and liquid carry-over. They
also analysed the hydrate formation possibility and ruled out
the hydrate formation for all simulated TEG flowrates since
the hydrate formation temperature is well below the dry gas
temperature. It is worth noting that their hydrate formation
analysis was nonetheless based on the operating condition of
the plant. Other operating condition scenarios (i.e., higher
pressure) may alter the validity of their deduction on hydrate
formation. Elendu et al. (2015) presented an analogous study
on the effect of different TEG flowrates into the dehydration
of natural gas that is sourced from Shell Petroleum
Development Company (SPDC) in South-South Nigeria.
Besides these aforementioned works that mainly assess the
dehydration process performance, several simulation studies
have also been conducted to address the sustainability issues
(e.g., environmental impact) that come from conventional ab-
sorption using TEG. One of the main hazardous air pollutants
(HAPs) coming out of this absorption process is a group of
aromatic compounds known as benzene, toluene, ethyl
Process Integr Optim Sustain
benzene, and xylene gases (abbreviated as BBTEX^) (Plisga
2004). A major portion of these BTEX gases are emitted from
the regenerator overhead while a minor portion of them is re-
leased from the flash vapour stream. The presence of these
BTEX gases in the dehydration process has also been associat-
ed with severe foaming, flooding, low dehydration efficiency,
and higher maintenance cost for the absorber (Yu et al. 2017).
Notably, these BTEX gases are irritants or carcinogens that may
cause serious environmental impact when released directly to
the atmosphere (Braek et al. 2001). Accordingly, BTEX emis-
sion amount from the dehydration unit has been restricted in
several countries. For example, the USA, being one of the top
countries with a strong national law for environmental democ-
racy, has established regulatory programs under the Clean Air
Act Amendments in 1990 that included BTEX within its list of
189 HAP. This Act limits BTEX emission to a maximum of 10
tons per year for any individual pollutant or a maximum of 25
tons per year for the total four pollutants (Ebeling et al. 1998).
As such, most of the previous studies employed this Act as a
benchmark to assess the amount of BTEX emission that comes
from the natural gas dehydration plant (Braek et al. 2001; Collie
et al. 1998; Ebeling et al. 1998; Eldemerdash and Kamarudin
2016). To minimise BTEX emission, several strategies can be
applied such as flaring the emitted BTEX gases (incineration),
adding a condensation unit to the regenerator overhead to re-
cover the BTEX compounds, implementing a new process de-
sign, optimising the existing process, and/or using another
BTEX-less absorbing glycol. At the moment, incineration is
the most widely applied process to eliminate BTEX gases.
Condensation can recover BTEX compounds but at the cost
of post-treating BTEX-containing water effluent. Recent at-
tempts have nevertheless been focused more into creating a
new process design (Ebeling et al. 1998), optimising the
existing process (Braek et al. 2001; Collie et al. 1998;
Darwish and Hilal 2008), and utilising an alternative solvent
(Bowman 2000; Ebeling et al. 1998; Eldemerdash and
Kamarudin 2016).
Our literature survey indicates that although numerous
simulation works have evaluated the effect of different
TEG flowrates on the dehydration process performance,
all of them assess either the relationship between the wa-
ter content in the dry product gas and the TEG loss rate or
the relationship between the water content in the dry
product gas and the BTEX emission. To this end, our
work aims to consider these three parameters
simultaneously in the assessment of the dehydration
process performance towards sustainable design. Hydrate
formation analysis, which is often overlooked in most of
the existing works, is additionally presented to obtain an
accurate prediction on the possibility of hydrate
formation. The first part of this work evaluates the effect
of different TEG flowrates on the dehydration process
performance. Here, the best TEG flowrate is determined
Process Integr Optim Sustain
that provides the minimum water content in dry product
gas with minimum TEG loss rate and BTEX emission.
The second part of this work then probes the effect of
recycling the flash vapour and regenerator overhead into
the absorber using the optimum TEG flowrate that was
determined in the first part. Such recycling configuration
was first mentioned by Neagu and Cursaru (2017) in their
techno-economic analysis of dehydration process by ab-
sorption using TEG. Their suggestion in the author’s
opinion was possibly aimed towards sustainable design
through recovering the wet gas loss, TEG loss rate (i.e.,
reduce wastage), and minimise the BTEX emission (i.e.,
lower environmental pollution).
Process Description
Figure 1 shows the schematic process flow diagram for
the conventional dehydration process using TEG. Prior
to the absorption process, excess liquid content that is
present in the wet gas such as liquid hydrocarbon and
water are first removed by using a two-phase separator.
Then, the wet gas enters the absorption column from
the bottom and goes up in a counter-current manner
against the water-lean TEG stream that enters from
the top of the column. During their contacts, the lean
TEG absorbs the water vapour from the wet gas. The
dry product gas (dehydrated natural gas) leaves from
the top of the column. The water-rich TEG, on the
other hand, exits from the bottom of the column and
is passed through the expansion valve to reduce the
pressure. Then, the water-rich TEG is directed into a
vertical two-phase separator (flash separator) where
low pressure and high temperature facilitates the re-
moval of light and soluble gas components such as
CO2. A minor amount of BTEX gases are also emitted
through the flash tank. The water-rich TEG leaving the
flash separator is then pre-heated using a glycol to
glycol heat exchanger (shell and tube heat exchanger)
to exchange heat with the water-lean TEG that comes
out of the regeneration column. Finally, the water-rich
TEG enters the regenerator and flows downward while
water vapour, hydrocarbon and traces of TEG are re-
moved from the regenerator overhead. A major portion
of the regenerated TEG (or the water-lean TEG)
exiting the bottom of the regeneration column is then
directed to the top of the absorption column using the
circulation pump. Some TEG that was lost during the
absorption, flash and regeneration processes is compen-
sated via an additional make-up flow. Before entering
the absorption column, the regenerated TEG is cooled
by heat exchange with the dry product gas exiting the
top of the absorber.
Methodology
Figure 2 shows the proposed methodology framework
that comprises of two steps. First, the conventional
dehydration process (Fig. 1) was simulated and the
best TEG flowrate was determined based on four
criteria: least water content in dry product gas, least
BTEX emission, least TEG loss rate, and least
possibility for hydrate formation. Next, the effect of
the three different recycle configuration mentioned by
Neagu and Cursaru (2017) to further improve the de-
hydration process performance towards sustainable de-
sign was investigated. Finally, economic analysis was
performed on the three different recycling configura-
tions following the methodology used in the previous
work of Neagu and Cursaru (2017).
Figures 3, 4, and 5 schematically show the process
flow diagrams for the dehydration processes with dif-
ferent recycling configurations of interest in this work.
In the following, only the new units and the major
modifications in the operating modes over the conven-
tional process flow diagram will be discussed (Fig. 1).
These major changes are reflected by dashed lines as
shown in Figs. 3, 4, and 5. In all three cases, the
recycled stream must pass through a compressor
followed by a cooling process prior to entering the
absorber. This is to adjust the operating condition of
the recycled stream so that it matches the operating
condition of the absorber. When the regenerator over-
head is recycled nonetheless (Fig. 3), an additional
cooler and a vertical two-phase separator must be
installed after the regenerator to separate the wet gas
stream and the traces of water and TEG. Then, the
operating condition of the wet gas stream should also
be adjusted before entering the absorber. This wet gas
stream can alternatively be recycled together with the
flash vapour that comes from the flash tank into the
absorber (Fig. 5). This can be performed by mixing the
two streams together using a mixer, prior to passing
through the compressor and the cooler.
In the present study, the dehydration process was sim-
ulated using the Aspen Hysys software (v8.8). The Peng-
Robinson fluid package was used because it has a higher
level of accuracy over a wide range of operating condi-
tions as reflected by its usage in numerous other simu-
lation studies on natural gas dehydration (Arubi and
Duru 2008; Baktash et al. 2010; Behbahani et al. 2016;
El Mawgoud et al. 2015; Eldemerdash and Kamarudin
2016; Isa et al. 2013; Neagu and Cursaru 2017; Øi and
Tyvand Selstø 2002). Peng-Robinson is also reliable and
efficient for a hydrocarbon system at temperature greater
than − 271 °C and pressure less than 100 MPa, applica-
ble to our operating conditions. Furthermore, our present

Fig. 1 Process flow diagram for
the conventional dehydration
process using TEG
study intends to evaluate the effect of different recycling
configuration that was first mentioned by Neagu and
Cursaru (2017) in their techno-economic analysis of the
dehydration process by absorption using TEG.
Therefore, operating conditions and property package
(i.e., Peng-Robinson) similar to the work of Neagu and
Cursaru (2017) was used. The wet gas composition and
operating condition are presented in Table 1 and Table 2,
respectively.
The results obtained in the present study were validated
against literature data in terms of the water dew point
Fig. 2 Simulation methodology
framework
Process Integr Optim Sustain
(Gandhidasan 2003), given as:
 
T dew;eq ¼ 18:228  ln 0:001685  W out  P0:81462
g ð1Þ
where Tdew, eq is the equilibrium dew point temperature
(°C), Wout is the water content that remain in dry product gas
(kg MMSCM−1) and Pg is the pressure of the stream (MPa).
The actual water dew point is about 5 to 10 °C higher than
the equilibrium dew point. Therefore, a 7 °C approach to the
equilibrium dew point was assumed in the present study
(Gandhidasan 2003).
Process Integr Optim Sustain

Fig. 3 Process flow diagram for

the conventional dehydration
process using TEG with recycling
flash vapour into the absorber

Results and Discussion
This section discussed the simulation results that probes the best
TEG flowrate in the conventional dehydration process and ad-
dresses the effect of different recycling configurations (Figs. 3,
4, and 5) to improve the dehydration process performance.
Conventional Dehydration Process
Water Content in Dry Product Gas
Water content in dry product gas at different TEG flowrates
from base case (Fig. 1) is presented in Fig. 6a. Larger extent of
water removal or equivalently, the drier product gas was
achieved at the higher TEG flowrate. For all simulated TEG
flowrates, the water content in dry product gas is well below
7 lb MMSCF−1, which is the upper safety limit for the allow-
able water content in pipelines for most countries.
Nevertheless, these values are still considerably high if such
dry product gas is to be transported in colder-climate places
like Alaska, whose pipeline specification is in the range of 1–
2 lb MMSCF−1. To further lower the water content via the
absorption route, other enhanced processes such as stripping
gas injection, DRIZO process and Coldfinger technology
should be utilised (Rahimpour et al. 2013; Saidi et al. 2014).
Figure 6b displays an analogous representation of water
content in terms of water dew point as a function of TEG
flowrate. Reducing water content in dry product gas clearly

Fig. 4 Process flow diagram for

the conventional dehydration
process using TEG with recycling
regenerator overhead into the
absorber
 Process Integr Optim Sustain

Fig. 5 Process flow diagram for

the conventional dehydration
process using TEG with recycling
mixture of flash vapour and
regenerator overhead into the
absorber

leads to water dew point depression (Compare Fig. 6a and
Fig. 6b). Greater depression was achieved at the higher TEG
flowrate. Such proportional relationship between water dew
point depression and water content in natural gas is a well-
known fact (Hernandez-valencia et al. 1992). The decreasing
trend of water dew point shown in Fig. 6b is consistent with
those reported elsewhere (Arubi and Duru 2008; Hernandez-
valencia et al. 1992). Our water dew point data at different
TEG flowrates were validated against the literature data
Gandhidasan (2003); the results of which are shown in
Fig. 7. An error of less than 10% was obtained, which high-
lights the accuracy of our simulation results.
Next, the effects of water content in dry product gas on the
water dew point and the hydrate formation temperature at
different pressures were evaluated. Figure 8 shows the water
dew point (WDP) curve and hydrate formation temperature
(HFT) curve of wet gas before dehydration that overlap at a
single pressure point (1282 kPa). The WDP curve lies on the
left side of the HFT curve only for pressures below 1282 kPa.
In this case, since the gas is thermodynamically unstable
(meta-stable equilibrium) and undersaturated with water, a
free aqueous phase is not likely to form. For pressure above
Table 2 Input parameters to the absorption and regeneration column
(reproduced from (Neagu and Cursaru 2017))

Parameter Value
Table 1 Feed gas
composition (reproduced Components Mass fraction (%)
General
from (Jokar et al. 2014))
Carbon dioxide 1.91 Wet gas flowrate 1,000,000 Nm3 day−1
Nitrogen 11.12 TEG circulation rate 25 L TEG Kg−1 water
Water 0.07 Equation of state Peng Robinson
Methane 80.26 Absorber
Ethane 2.58 Top pressure 4080 kPa
Propane 0.87 Total pressure drop 8 kPa
i-Butane 0.04 Number of stages 14
n-Butane 0.48 Overall stage efficiency 0.3
i-Pentane 0.28 Regenerator
n-Pentane 0.24 Condenser Full reflux
n-Hexane 0.28 Top pressure 102 kPa
n-Heptane 0.33 Total pressure drop 18 kPa
Benzene 0.04 Feed temperature 100 °C
Toluene 0.05 Number of stages 10
Ethyl benzene 1.00 Reflux ratio 0.01
O-Xylene 0.45 Reboiler temperature 200 °C
Process Integr Optim Sustain
Fig. 6 a Water content of dry product gas and b water dew point of dry product gas
1282 kPa, however, the WDP curve is on the right side of the
HFT curve, which suggests that the water content is above
saturation so that free water and hydrate may form.
Following the base case dehydration using the lowest simu-
lated TEG flowrate of 855 kg h−1 (Fig. 1), only a minor amount
of water remains in dry product gas. Therefore, the WDT curve is
shifted to the left of the HFT curve (Fig. 9). At all simulated
pressures, this dry product gas is undersaturated with water.
Figure 10a–d) shows similar behaviour for base case dehydra-
tions at the larger TEG flowrates of 1069, 1283, 1497, and
1711 kg hr.−1, respectively (Fig. 1). It becomes clear that follow-
ing our base case natural gas dehydration scenario, free water and
hydrates have very low possibility to form in the dry product gas.
BTEX Emission
The total BTEX emission from the base case scenario (Fig. 1)
at various TEG flowrates is shown in Fig. 11. Such emission
comprises of BTEX emitted from the flash vapour stream and
BTEX emitted from the regenerator overhead, the individual
amounts of which are shown in Fig. 12a and Fig. 12b, respec-
tively. Upon comparing these two figures, it becomes apparent
Fig. 7 Water dew point data comparison between our simulation and
Gandhidasan (2003)
that majority of the BTEX gases release comes from the re-
generator overhead. For example, at TEG flowrate of
855 kg h−1, approximately 325 ton year−1 of BTEX is emitted
from the regenerator overhead, which is 150 times that of
BTEX emitted from the flash separator (of approximately
2.1 ton year−1). This is attributed to the fact that most of the
BTEX gases remain in the liquid phase within the rich-TEG
stream during the flash separation process (Braek et al. 2001).
Moreover, BTEX emission, whether total or individual, also
increases almost linearly with an increase in TEG flowrate
(Fig. 11 and Fig. 12) and such trend is in agreement with the
previous reports (Eldemerdash and Kamarudin 2016; Braek et
al. 2001; Ebeling et al. 1998; Collie et al. 1998). As a result, a
lower TEG flowrate is desirable in cases where BTEX emis-
sion (i.e., environmental regulations) becomes the greatest
concern.
TEG Loss Rate
Figure 13 shows the total TEG loss rate from base case
scenario (Fig. 1) as a function of TEG flowrate. The
total TEG loss rate is made up of the loss rate from
Fig. 8 Water dew point curve and hydrate formation temperature curve of
wet gas before dehydration

Fig. 9 Water dew point curve and hydrate formation curve of dry product
gas after dehydration using the lowest simulated TEG flowrate of
855 kg h−1
the absorber, the flash tank, and the regenerator over-
head; the individual amounts of which are depicted in
Fig. 14a, Fig. 14b, and Fig. 14c, respectively. The TEG
loss rate due to thermal degradation, however, was not
taken into consideration since the reboiler temperature
in the present study was operated at 200 °C, which is
a few degrees lower than the thermal degradation tem-
perature of TEG (i.e. 204 °C). From Fig. 14, majority
Fig. 10 Water dew point curves and hydrate formation curves of dry product gas using TEG flowrate of a 1069 kg h−1, b 1283 kg h−1, c 1497 kg h−1, and
d 1711 kg h−1
Process Integr Optim Sustain
of the TEG loss rate takes place in the regenerator,
which contributes up to about 85% of the overall loss
rate. TEG loss rate from the flash separation process, in
contrast, is considered negligible since it contributes less
than 0.05% to the overall loss rate. In general, the in-
dividual and the total TEG loss rate increases almost
linearly with an increase in TEG flowrate (Fig. 13 and
Fig. 14). To minimise TEG loss rate (i.e., plant wast-
age), the lowest possible TEG flowrate should be used.
Optimum Glycol Flowrate for Conventional Dehydration
Process
Determination of the optimum TEG flowrate should take into
consideration the trade-off between water content, total BTEX
emission, and total TEG loss rate. This is since increasing the
TEG flowrate leads to decreasing water content but increasing
BTEX emission and TEG loss rate (Fig. 15). The optimum
TEG flowrate is therefore 1241 kg h−1. At this flowrate, the
water content is 5.08 lb MMSCF−1, which is within the ac-
ceptable limit for pipeline specification in most countries. The
respective total BTEX emission and total TEG loss rate are
509 and 3.14 ton year−1, respectively. Such BTEX emission
nonetheless far exceeds the limit set under the Clean Air Act
Amendments (1990), which specifies a maximum of
Process Integr Optim Sustain
Fig. 11 Total BTEX emission from the whole base case process
25 ton year−1. These BTEX emission and TEG loss rate could
possibly be minimised by applying the several different
recycling configurations (Figs. 3, 4x, and 5) that aim towards
sustainable design for natural gas dehydration process.
In countries where environmental regulations are strictly
regulated, the lowest TEG flowrate is preferred to minimise
the total BTEX emission. At a minimum TEG flowrate of about
855 kg h−1, the total BTEX emission and the total TEG loss rate
become minimum, i.e., 325 and 2.7 ton year−1, respectively.
The water content, however, reaches its highest, i.e.,
5.68 lb MMSCF−1. This value, however, is still below the limit
of 7 lb MMSCF−1. In countries where lower water content is
required, on the other hand, the highest flowrate of about
1710 kg h−1 should be adopted, which leads to a minimum
water content of 4.65 lb MMSCF−1 but the highest total
BTEX emission of 678 ton year−1 and the highest total TEG
loss rate of 3.87 ton year−1.
The approach demonstrated in this sub-section that deter-
mined the optimum TEG flowrate is particularly useful for
personnel working in a natural gas dehydration processing
plant. This approach can additionally be used to determine
the suitable TEG flowrate based on different criteria (e.g., in
Fig. 12 BTEX emission from a flash tank and b regenerator overhead
countries where BTEX emission is of greatest concern, lower
TEG flowrate should be used).
The Different Recycling Configurations Applied
to the Conventional Dehydration Process
Case (I): Effect of Recycling Flash Vapour into the Absorber
Table 3 summarises the main results from our simulation sce-
nario where the flash vapour is recycled into the absorber in
comparison to the base case scenario. The water content in the
dry product gas increases marginally compared to the base
case, which also leads to a marginal increase in water dew
point (Table 3). Such increase can be attributed to the minor
amount of water that is present in the recycled flash vapour
stream (Fig. 3). The results of case (i) were validated using the
literature data Gandhidasan (2003), where a percentage error
of less than 2% was obtained.
The total TEG loss rate also decreases by 0.01 ton year−1
compared to the base case (Table 3), which does not represent
a significant reduction. This is since only a minor amount of
TEG was lost during the flash separation into the flash vapour
stream, which is then returned back to the absorber via the wet
gas stream in our case (i) scenario (Fig. 3).
No BTEX emission comes out from the flash vapour stream
since the BTEX gases that is released during the flash separa-
tion into the flash vapour stream is recycled back to the ab-
sorber (Table 3 and Fig. 3). However, such reduction only
accounts for 0.6% reduction of the total BTEX emission rela-
tive to the base case scenario (Table 3). This is because only a
marginal amount of the BTEX gases is present within the flash
vapour stream (Fig. 3). Following the flash separation, major-
ity of the BTEX gases remains in the liquid phase within the
rich TEG stream (Braek et al. 2001). These BTEX gases are
later released from the regenerator overhead, i.e., the only other
remaining route for the BTEX gases to be emitted (Table 3).
Relative to the base case scenario, recycling the flash vapour
stream in fact leads to the increase in the BTEX emission from

Fig. 13 Total TEG loss rate from the whole base case process
the regenerator overhead by about 1.7 ton year−1 (Table 3). The
total BTEX emission in the case (i) scenario is essentially equal
to the BTEX emission from the regenerator overhead, which is
reduced by approximately 0.3% with respect to the total BTEX
emission in the base case scenario, which comes from both the
flash vapour stream and the regenerator overhead (Table 3).
Overall, recycling the flash vapour into the absorber does
not bring significant improvement to the conventional dehy-
dration process.
Fig. 14 TEG loss rate from a absorber, b flash tank, and c regenerator overhead
Process Integr Optim Sustain
Case (ii): Effect of Recycling Regenerator Overhead
into the Absorber
Table 4 summarises the main results from our simulation sce-
nario where the regenerator overhead is recycled into the ab-
sorber in comparison to the base case scenario. The water
content in dry product gas decreases marginally compared to
the base case, which brings about a marginal decrease in water
dew point (Table 4). Such decrease is to be anticipated since
water is almost absent in the regenerator overhead stream, i.e.,
almost all water is removed from the regenerator overhead by
an additional two-phase separator before recycled back into
the absorber (Fig. 4). Case (ii) results were also validated
using the literature data, Gandhidasan (2003), where a per-
centage error of less than 2% was obtained.
Relative to the base case scenario, the total TEG loss rate
also decreases by about 0.008 ton year−1 (Table 4). Such mar-
ginal decrease can be explained by the small amount of TEG
that remains in the regenerator overhead stream following the
two-phase separation process, which is returned back to the
absorber via the wet gas stream in our case (ii) scenario
(Fig. 4). This is consistent with the negligible changes in
TEG loss rate from the absorber and the flash vapour stream
relative to the base case scenario (Table 4).
Table 4 also shows that recycling the regenerator overhead
into the absorber does not reduce the total BTEX emission
Process Integr Optim Sustain

Fig. 15 Trade-off relationship of

the water content and the total
BTEX emission and total TEG
loss rate with increasing TEG
flowrate

(Table 4). One of the possible explanations is that in our case
(ii) scenario, the BTEX gases are released from the flash va-
pour stream and the bottom separator stream from the regen-
erator overhead unlike in case (i) scenario where the BTEX
gases are only released from the regenerator overhead stream
(compare Fig. 4 to Fig. 3).
In essence, recycling the regenerator overhead into the ab-
sorber only leads to a marginal reduction of the water content
in dry product gas and the total TEG loss rate. This, however,
was achieved at the expense of increase of the total BTEX
emission by 0.04%.
Case (iii): Effect of Recycling Mixture of Flash Vapour
and Regenerator Overhead into the Absorber
Table 5 summarises the main results from our simulation sce-
nario where both the flash vapour and the regenerator over-
head are mixed and recycled into the absorber in comparison
to the base case scenario. Identical to the case (i) scenario, the
water content and the water dew point increase marginally
relative to the base case, albeit to a slightly larger extent
(Table 5). The majority of the additional water was contribut-
ed by the flash vapour stream (Fig. 5). Our validation of case
(iii) results against the literature data, Gandhidasan (2003),
again, yields a percentage error of less than 2%.
The total TEG loss rate is reduced by 0.01 ton year−1, iden-
tical to the case (i) result since only a minor of TEG was lost to
the flash vapour stream and the regenerator overhead, which
are recycled back to the absorber (Fig. 5).
Analogous to case (i) results, the BTEX emission from the
flash vapour stream is absent (compare Table 5 to Table 3). As
a result, the bottom separator stream from the regenerator
overhead becomes the only possible route for the release of
BTEX gases. This leads to an increase in the BTEX emission
from the regenerator overhead by about 1.4 ton year−1. The
total BTEX emission nonetheless is reduced by about
1.7 ton year−1 with respect to the base case scenario, which
translates to only 0.3% reduction in the total BTEX emission.

Table 3 Effect of recycling flash

vapour into the absorber Parameters Base case Recycling flash vapour

Water content (lb water MMSCF−1 gas) 5.1337 5.1351

Simulated water dew point (°C) − 8.2424 − 8.2386
Literature water dew point (°C) − 8.1128 − 8.1040
Percentage error between simulated and literature water dew point (%) 1.57 1.63
TEG loss rate (ton year−1)
Absorber 0.5576 0.5575
Flash tank 0.0017 0
Regenerator overhead 2.5600 2.5486
Total 3.1193 3.1061
BTEX emission (ton year−1)
Flash tank 3.1267 0
Regenerator overhead 505.7745 507.4860
Total 508.9012 507.486
 Process Integr Optim Sustain

Table 4 Effect of recycling

regenerator overhead into the Parameters Base Recycling regenerator
absorber case overhead

Water content (lb water MMSCF−1 gas) 5.1337 5.1335

Simulated water dew point (°C) − 8.2424 − 8.2434
Literature water dew point (°C) − 8.1128 − 8.1147
Percentage error between simulated and literature water dew point 1.57 1.56
(%)
TEG loss rate (ton year−1)
Absorber 0.5576 0.5576
Flash tank 0.0017 0.0017
Regenerator overhead 2.5600 2.5520
Total 3.1193 3.1113
BTEX emission (ton year−1)
Flash tank 3.1267 3.1315
Regenerator overhead 505.7745 505.9521
Total 508.9012 509.0835

Overall, recycling both the flash vapour stream and the
regenerator overhead into the absorber decrease the TEG loss
rate and the BTEX emission at the cost of increase in the water
content; closely reproducing case (i) scenario results.
Results Summary
vapour and regenerator overhead into the absorber (case (iii))
nonetheless produces identical results to the case (i) scenario
where the BTEX emission is reduced by 0.3%. This is, how-
ever, achieved at the expense of increasing the water content
in dry product gas by 0.05%. For all the three different con-
figuration cases, the TEG loss rate was reduced by 0.4%.

Table 6 summarises the results of the three different recycling

configurations in comparison to the base case scenario.
Recycling the flash vapour into the absorber (case (i)) reduced
the BTEX emission by 0.3% but at the cost of the increase of
the water content in dry product gas by 0.03%, relative to the
base case. Recycling the regenerator overhead into the absorb-
er (case (ii)), on the other hand, reduced the water content in
dry product gas by 0.004%, which is traded-off by an increase
in the BTEX emission by 0.04%. Recycling a mixture of flash
Economic Analysis
In this section, we performed economic analysis that assesses
the total cost of production (TCOP) for the base case and the
three different recycling configurations. The TCOP takes into
consideration the sum of the annual capital cost (ACC) and the
cost of production (COP) that were estimated based on the
methodology used in the previous work (Neagu and Cursaru

Table 5 Effect of recycling

mixture of flash vapour and Parameters Base Recycling mixture of flash vapour and
regenerator overhead into the case regenerator overhead
absorber
Water content (lb water MMSCF−1 gas) 5.1337 5.1362
Simulated water dew point (°C) − 8.2424 − 8.2356
Literature water dew point (°C) − 8.1128 − 8.1040
Percentage error between simulated and literature 1.57 1.60
water dew point (%)
TEG loss rate (ton year−1)
Absorber 0.5576 0.5576
Flash tank 0.0017 0
Regenerator overhead 2.5600 2.5484
Total 3.1193 3.1062
BTEX emission (ton year−1)
Flash tank 3.1267 0
Regenerator overhead 505.7745 507.1638
Total 508.9012 507.1638
Process Integr Optim Sustain
Table 6 Result summary for
different recycling configurations Case
relative to the base case
Case (i): Recycling the flash vapour
Case (ii): Recycling the regenerator overhead
Case (iii): Recycling the mixture of the flash vapour and the
regenerator overhead
2017). Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the cost analysis
presented here are different, by a marginal amount, to the
previous work given the different number of equipment used.
Table 7 summarises the TCOPs for different recycling con-
figurations relative to the base case. The detailed methodology
and result for the TCOP are available in the work of Neagu
and Cursaru (2017) and Appendix B, respectively. All differ-
ent recycling configurations resulted into substantial addition-
al capital and operation costs (Table 7). These additional costs,
however, appear not to contribute significantly to the variation
in TCOP among the three recycling configurations. Relative
to the base case, recycling the flash vapour (case (i)) requires
an additional cost of about 0.55% of the TCOP (i.e. $18,000).
Likewise, an additional cost of about $19,000 and $22,000 is
required in the cases of recycling the regenerator overhead
(case (ii)) and recycling the mixture of flash vapour and re-
generator overhead (case (iii)), respectively.
Conclusion
Our manuscript demonstrated the effect of the TEG flowrate
on the performance of natural gas dehydration by absorption
using TEG in terms of the water content in dry product gas,
the TEG loss rate, and the BTEX emission. Since increasing
TEG flowrate leads to decreasing water content, increasing
TEG loss rate, and increasing BTEX emission, an optimum
flowrate of 1241 kg h−1 was identified that balances these
three factors, which provides the water content of
5.08 lb MMSCF−1 in dry product gas and the total TEG loss
rate and the total BTEX emissions of about 3.14 and
509 ton year−1, respectively. This optimum flowrate was then
used to simulate the effect of three different recycling config-
urations on the dehydration performance. We additionally
Table 7 Total cost of production for the three different recycling
configurations relative to the base case
Cost, $ Base case Case (i) Case (ii) Case (iii)
ACC 394,767 407,738 409,635 411,184
COP 2,812,287 2,816,999 2,816,505 2,818,206
TCOP 3,207,054 3,224,738 3,226,140 3,229,390
Result summary
Water TEG loss BTEX
content (%) rate (%) Emission (%)
+ 0.03 − 0.4 − 0.3
− 0.004 − 0.3 + 0.04
+ 0.05 − 0.4 − 0.3
evaluated the economics of these different recycling configu-
ration based on their TCOP. Our results demonstrated that
applying such configurations does not contribute towards the
significant reduction in the water content and does not sustain-
ably reduce the total BTEX emission while requiring extra
major capital and operation costs. In all three cases, the mar-
ginal reduction in the total BTEX emission is always accom-
panied by the marginal increase in the water content in dry
product gas and vice versa. The total TEG loss rate, on the
other hand, is consistently reduced in all three recycling con-
figuration cases, up to 0.4%, relative to the base case.
Acknowledgements Zong Yang Kong gratefully acknowledges the Full
Fee-Waiver Studentship provided by Swinburne University of
Technology Sarawak Campus.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest Statement The authors declare that they have no
conflict of interest.
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Supplementary materials
Appendix A – Flowsheet for different dehydration configuration

Figure A1. Flowsheet for conventional dehydration process.

1
Figure A2. Flowsheet for conventional dehydration process using TEG with recycling flash vapour into the absorber.

2
Figure A3. Flowsheet for conventional dehydration process using TEG with recycling regenerator overhead into the absorber.

3
Figure A4. Flowsheet for conventional dehydration process using TEG with recycling mixture of flash vapour and regenerator overhead
into the absorber.

4
Appendix B – Cost estimation
Table B1. Fixed capital cost comparison between the three dehydration processes.
Equipment Type Base case Case (i) Case (ii) Case (iii)
Equipment Fixed capital Equipment Fixed capital Equipment Fixed capital Equipment Fixed capital
cost Ce, $ cost C, $ cost Ce, $ cost C, $ cost Ce, $ cost C, $ cost Ce, $ cost C, $
Absorber 209,318 837,274 209,318 837,274 209,318 837,274 209,318 837,274
Regenerator 14,562 58,249 14,562 58,249 14,562 58,249 14,562 58,249
Flash separator 10,047 40,190 10,047 40,190 10,047 40,190 10,047 40,190
Lean/Rich heat
exchanger 14,144 49,504 14,144 49,504 14,144 49,504 14,144 49,504
Lean/Dry gas
heat exchanger 14,659 51,306 14,659 51,306 14,659 51,306 14,659 51,306
Reboiler 18,837 65,928 18,837 65,928 18,837 65,928 18,837 65,928
Condenser 2,652 9,282 2,652 9,282 2,652 9,282 2,652 9,282
Mixer 1,045 2,613 1,045 2,613 1,045 2,613 1,045 2,613
Pump with
motor 12,260 30,651 12,260 30,651 12,260 30,651 12,260 30,651
Compressor
with motor 12,137 30,342 10,711 26,777 12,509 31,272
Cooler 2,080 7,280 2,080 7,280 2,080 7,280
Separator 2,266 9,065 2,266 9,065
Total 1,144,997 1,182,619 1,188,119 1,192,614

5
Table B2. The fixed capital investment (FCI) for the three dehydration processes.
Cost, $ Base case Case (i) Case (ii) Case (iii)
Inside battery limits investment (ISBL) 1,144,997 1,182,619 1,188,119 1,192,614
Offsite cost (OSBL) 343,499 354,786 356,436 357,784
Engineering cost (EC) 446,549 461,221 463,366 465,119
Contingency charges (CO) 148,850 153,740 154,455 155,040
FCI (2006 prices) 2,083,894 2,152,367 2,162,377 2,1770,557
FCI (2017 prices) 2,470,978 2,552,169 2,564,038 2,573,738
ACC* 394,767 407,738 409,635 411,184
*ACC was calculated based on interest rate of 15% and the plant lifetime is taken as 20 years, following the assumption of Neagu & Cursaru
(2017).

Table B3. Annual cost of production (COP) estimation for the three dehydration processes.
Cost, $ Base case Case (i) Case (ii) Case (iii)
Variable cost of production (VCOP)
TEG cost (including TEG loss) 10,950 10,950 10,950 10,950
Steam cost 18,806 18,806 18,806 18,806
Electrical cost 800,000 801,096 800,098 801,344
Miscellaneous cost 16,934 16,956 16,936 16,961
Annual VCOP 846,690 847,809 846,790 948,061

6
 Fixed cost of production (FCOP)
Operating labour (OL) 600,000 600,000 600,000 600,000
Supervision (S) 150,000 150,000 150,000 150,000
Direct salary overhead (DSO) 375,000 375,000 375,000 375,000
Maintenance (M) 34,350 35,479 35,644 35,778
Property taxes and insurance 22,900 23,652 23,762 23,852
Rent of land 14,885 15,374 15,446 15,504
General plant overhead 753,577 754,311 754,418 754,506
Environmental charges 14,885 15,374 15,446 15,504
Annual FCOP 1,965,597 1,969,190 1,969,715 1,970,145
Cost of production (COP) 2,812,287 2,816,199 2,816,505 2,818,206

7
Additional information for Chapter 3.

Table 3A1. Main stream summary for the conventional dehydration process in Chapter 3.
Name Wet gas to abs Sale gas Lean TEG recycle Dry overhead vap
Temperature (oC) 30 33.68 34 111.3
Pressure (kPa) 4100 4080 4100 102
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 34719 34653 855 60.60

Table 3A2. Main stream summary for the case (i) in Chapter 3.
Name Wet gas to abs Sale gas Lean TEG recycle Dry overhead vap Flash vapour recycle
Temperature (oC) 30 33.68 34 110.6 34
Pressure (kPa) 4100 4080 4100 102 4090
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 34719 34653 855 84.41 7.814

Table 3A3. Main stream summary for the case (ii) in Chapter 3.
Name Wet gas to abs Sale gas Lean TEG recycle Dry overhead vapour
recycle
o
Temperature ( C) 30 33.68 34 34
Pressure (kPa) 4100 4080 4100 4090
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 34719 34627 855 0.7999

52
Table 3A4. Main stream summary for the case (iii) in Chapter 3.
Name Wet gas to abs Sale gas Lean TEG recycle Mixed vapour recycle
Temperature (oC) 30 35.17 34 34
Pressure (kPa) 4100 4080 4100 4090
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 34719 34627 855 8.614

53
Chapter 4. Development of techno-economic framework

The aim of this chapter is to develop a techno-economic framework to determine the net profit
generated from different dehydration processes and subsequently, selecting the most profitable
dehydration process that meets the maximum water dew point requirement specified by local
authority (i.e., Malaysia) for pipeline-transported natural gas. The developed framework addresses
the limitation of the existing techno-economic studies available in literature that do not take into
account the net profit assessment as described in Chapter 2.

In this chapter, three different dehydration processes are considered: (i) the conventional
dehydration process, (ii) the stripping gas dehydration process that consumes a portion of sale gas
as stripping gas, and (iii) the stripping gas dehydration process that relies on externally injected
nitrogen gas as stripping gas. The different recycling configurations on conventional dehydration
process presented in Chapter 3 are not considered because it does not contribute towards
significant process performance improvement while requiring substantial additional capital and
operational costs.

The technical evaluation in this chapter involves the assessment of different dehydration processes
in meeting the water dew point specification specified by local authority for pipeline-transported
natural gas. The economic evaluation, on the other hand, was performed based on the net profit
generated from the different dehydration processes. Here, the revenue of the sale gas is calculated
using its higher heating value since pipeline-transported natural gas is normally bought or sold on
the basis of its higher heating value (HHV). This has never been considered in any of the techno-
economic analysis for natural gas dehydration via absorption using TEG.

This chapter was published as a research paper in Journal of Chemical Technology and
Biotechnology:
Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2019. Development of a techno-economic framework
for natural gas dehydration via absorption using tri-ethylene glycolௗ: A comparative study on
conventional and stripping gas dehydration processes. J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol, 94, 955–963.
doi:10.1002/jctb.5844

54
Research Article
Received: 14 August 2018 Revised: 1 October 2018 Accepted article published: 8 October 2018 Published online in Wiley Online Library: 4 December 2018

(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI 10.1002/jctb.5844

Development of a techno-economic framework

for natural gas dehydration via absorption
using Tri-Ethylene Glycol: a comparative study
on conventional and stripping gas
dehydration processes
Zong Yang Kong,a Ahmed Mahmoud,a* Shaomin Liub
and Jaka Sunarsoa

Abstract
BACKGROUND: To date, none of the existing techno-economic analyses on natural gas dehydration via absorption using
triethylene glycol takes into consideration the profit assessment. This work addresses this shortcoming by developing a
techno-economic framework that evaluates the economic feasibility of three different dehydration processes, i.e., conventional
dehydration process, stripping gas dehydration process using sale gas, and stripping gas dehydration process using nitrogen,
which can meet the maximum water dew point requirement set by local authorities (e.g., Malaysia) for pipeline-transported
natural gas.

RESULTS: Our techno-economic analyses reveal that the maximum water dew point specification of −25 ∘ C can only be achieved
by using a stripping gas dehydration process that consumes more than 260 Nm3 h−1 of sale gas or 435 Nm3 h−1 of nitrogen.
In particular, the use of sale gas as stripping gas with an optimum flow rate of 260 Nm3 h−1 generates the highest annual net
profit margin, of about $29 million. Such a profit margin is higher with respect to the use of nitrogen as stripping gas and the
conventional dehydration process by about $1.6 million and $300 000, respectively. The minimum water dew point specification
of 5 ∘ C, on the other hand, can be achieved by all three analysed dehydration processes.

CONCLUSION: The use of sale gas as stripping gas becomes more justifiable economically relative to the conventional
dehydration process and the other alternative (the use of nitrogen as stripping gas) and when a low water dew point specification
of −25 ∘ C is required for natural gas.
© 2018 Society of Chemical Industry

Supporting information may be found in the online version of this article.

Keywords: absorption; Aspen HYSYS; dehydration; glycol regeneration; natural gas; triethylene glycol

INTRODUCTION
Dehydration is a process that removes water vapour from nat-
ural gas. This process is required since water vapour presence
in the natural gas stream may cause hydrate formation in trans-
porting pipelines, which in turn leads to pipeline plugging and/or
corrosion.1 Its presence also reduces the natural gas combustion
efficiency and may induce blockage of valve fittings, compression
system, process equipment and instrumentation, especially when
the natural gas composition is rich in CO2 and H2 S.2 Water con-
tent in the natural gas stream has therefore been strictly regulated,
with limits that differ according to geographical location. The USA
and Canada, for example, specify a water content limit of 7 lb of
water per million standard cubic feet of gas (lb MMSCF−1 ) and 4 lb
MMSCF−1 , respectively. Places with a colder climate such as Alaska
often have lower limits, which vary between 1 and 2 lb MMSCF−1 .3
of water dew point (i.e., the temperature at which natural gas
becomes saturated with water vapour at a particular pressure). At
any given dew point, a reduction in temperature or an increase in
pressure leads to water condensation. Lower water dew point gen-
erally signifies a lower water content.4 The water dew point specifi-
cation is usually indicated in the sale gas contract or determined by
∗ Correspondence to: A Mahmoud, Research Centre for Sustainable
Technologies, Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science, Swinburne
University of Technology, Jalan Simpang Tiga, 93350 Kuching, Sarawak,
Malaysia. E-mail: melhadi@swinburne.edu.my; mahmod_gu@yahoo.com
a Research Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Engineering, Comput-
ing and Science, Swinburne University of Technology, Kuching, Malaysia
955

The water content in natural gas can also be represented in terms b Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

J Chem Technol Biotechnol 2019; 94: 955–963 www.soci.org © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry
 www.soci.org
the requirements set for pipeline-transported natural gas, which
differ according to geographical location. Malaysia, for example,
applies a water dew point specification between +5 and −25 ∘ C
for its pipeline-transported natural gas.5
Several dehydration processes are available such as absorp-
tion, adsorption, and condensation (i.e., refrigeration). A study
by Netusil and Ditl that provides a detailed discussion on the
comparison between these three processes can be referred to.6
Among the three mentioned processes, natural gas dehydration
via absorption using tri-ethylene glycol (TEG) is the most eco-
nomically attractive, and has been widely used in natural gas
dehydration applications. This is because TEG has better regener-
ation capability, high water affinity, high chemical stability, high
hygroscopicity, low vapour pressure, low evaporation loss rate, and
low thermal degradation rates in the regeneration system.7,8 Nev-
ertheless, the drawback of absorption using TEG is the maximum
purity (i.e., concentration) of the regenerated TEG, which is limited
to 98.8%.9 This is since the operating temperature of the reboiler
should be kept below 204 ∘ C to avoid the thermal degradation
of TEG.10 This limit has lowered the absorption process efficiency,
causing a substantial amount of water content to remain in the
supposedly dry product gas (i.e., sale gas).11 Therefore, to achieve
a more complete water removal, alternative processes to enhance
the TEG purity limit have been developed, such as stripping gas
injection, Stahl column, and Coldfinger technology.11,12
Among the enhanced processes mentioned, stripping gas injec-
tion is regarded as the simplest and most common route to obtain
enhanced TEG regeneration performance. The introduction of a
stripping gas is intended to reduce the partial pressure of the
water, which should lead to an increase in the final purity of the
regenerated TEG.3 Details of the stripping gas mechanism can be
found in our review paper.13 It enables the original TEG purity limit
of 98.8% in the conventional process to be increased up to 99.7%.
The stripping gas can be any inert gas, such as nitrogen, which
is introduced externally, or a portion of sale gas (i.e., dry product
gas). The latter has been reported to provide lower capital cost,
lower utility cost, and lower energy consumption in comparison to
the former.14 However, these aforementioned advantages are nor-
mally achieved at a lower profit margin since a portion of sale gas
is utilized as stripping gas.
Over the past decade, our literature survey indicates that only
a handful of techno-economic analyses have been performed
on natural gas dehydration via absorption using TEG.13 Gad et al.
techno-economically evaluated the potential of replacing nitro-
gen with a portion of sale gas as stripping gas.14 They found that
using a portion of sale gas as stripping gas leads to significant
savings in operational cost, since no external stripping gas (i.e.,
nitrogen) is required. They did, not, however, assess the profit com-
parison between the stripping gas dehydration processes using a
portion of sale gas and nitrogen. Since they utilised a portion of
the sale gas as the stripping gas, less sale gas is made available
for sale. An analogous study was presented by Neagu and Cur-
saru, in which they performed a techno-economic analysis that
compared the stripping gas dehydration process using a portion
of sale gas against the conventional dehydration process.15 They
demonstrated that the stripping gas dehydration process can
improve TEG regeneration performance. This leads to an increase
in the purity of regenerated TEG without imposing substantial
additional capital cost. They have, however, excluded a profit com-
parison between the two dehydration processes. Therefore, our
work addressed this limitation by developing a techno-economic
956
framework to determine the suitability of different dehydration
wileyonlinelibrary.com/jctb © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry
ZY Kong et al.
processes, i.e., conventional dehydration process, stripping gas
dehydration process using sale gas and stripping dehydration
process using nitrogen, to meet the water dew point requirement
specified by the local authority (i.e., Malaysia). To our knowledge,
such a techno-economic framework that takes into consideration
the profit assessment has never been performed in any previous
studies. The detailed methodology framework of this work is
presented below.
PROCESS DESCRIPTION
Conventional dehydration processes
The schematic process flow diagram for the conventional dehy-
dration process using TEG is shown in Fig. 1. Prior to the absorp-
tion process, the wet gas first enters a two-phase separator to
remove the excess liquid content present in the wet gas, such
as liquid water. The wet gas is then directed into the absorption
column from the bottom and flows up in a counter-current man-
ner against the water-lean TEG stream that enters from the top
of the column. During contact, the water-lean TEG absorbs water
vapour from the wet gas. The dehydrated natural gas (i.e., dry
product gas) leaves from the top of the column. The water-rich
TEG, on the other hand, exits from the bottom of the column and
passes through an expansion valve, so its pressure is reduced. Next,
the water-rich TEG is directed into a vertical two-phase separa-
tor (flash separator), where low pressure and high temperature
facilitate the removal of light and soluble gas components. The
water-rich TEG leaving the flash tank is then pre-heated using a
glycol-to-glycol heat exchanger (shell and tube heat exchanger)
to exchange heat with the water-lean TEG exiting from the regen-
erator. Finally, the water-rich TEG enters the regenerator and flows
downward, whereas water vapour, hydrocarbon, and traces of TEG
are removed from the regenerator overhead. A major portion of
the regenerated TEG (i.e., water-lean TEG) that exits from the bot-
tom of the regenerator is recycled back to the top of the absorption
column using the circulation pump. Some TEG that was lost during
the absorption, flash, and regeneration processes is compensated
via an additional make-up flow. Before entering the absorption col-
umn, the regenerated TEG is cooled by heat exchange with the sale
gas that exits from the top of the absorber.
Stripping gas process
The configuration for the stripping gas dehydration process that
utilised external stripping gas (Fig. 2) is identical to the conven-
tional absorption process (Fig. 1), except for the injection of the
external stripping gas (e.g., nitrogen) into the regenerator. The
amount of equipment for such a configuration, however, is anal-
ogous to the conventional absorption process.
Figure 3 shows the schematic process flow diagram for the
stripping gas dehydration process using a portion of sale gas. The
configuration for such a stripping process (Fig. 3) is also identical
to the conventional absorption process (Fig. 1), except for the
injection of a portion of the sale gas into the regenerator. Such
a configuration, however, requires some additional equipment
such as an expansion valve and a heater to adjust the operating
conditions (e.g., pressure and temperature) of the stripping gas
(i.e., a portion of the sale gas) so that it matches the operating
conditions of the regenerator (Fig. 3).
Methodology
This work is sequenced as follows. First, we reproduced the two
dehydration processes based on the work of Neagu and Cursaru:15
J Chem Technol Biotechnol 2019; 94: 955–963
Development of a techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration www.soci.org

Figure 1. Process flow diagram for natural gas dehydration by absorption using TEG.

Figure 2. Process flow diagram for natural gas dehydration by absorption using TEG modified with the injection of external stripping gas (e.g., nitrogen)
into the regenerator.

Case I – the conventional dehydration process at a reboiler tem-
perature of 200 ∘ C; Case II – the stripping gas dehydration process,
with stripping gas flow rate varying from 0.1% to 0.5% of the total
sale gas flow rate. We additionally simulated an additional Case
III – the stripping gas dehydration process, which employed nitro-
gen as stripping gas with a flow rate equivalent to that of Case (II).
Next, we developed a techno-economic framework that evaluates
the performance of all dehydration processes (Fig. 4).
The technical investigation involves the assessment of differ-
ent dehydration processes to meet the water dew point specifica-
tion set by the local authority for pipeline-transported natural gas.
Notably, the water dew point specification employed in this study
is based on Malaysian requirements, but our techno-economic
framework can also be used to assess the water dew point spec-
ification set by other regulatory authorities (e.g., Europe).
Economic assessment, on the other hand, was evaluated based
on the net profit that can be obtained from different dehy-
consideration the gross profit and the total cost of production
(TCOP), given as follows:
Net profit = Gross profit − TCOP (1)
It is worth noting that the sale gas exiting from the dehydra-
tion process has to undergo several other purification processes
(e.g., Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) recovery). However, for the sake
of simplicity, we assumed the sale gas that exiting from the
dehydration process is ready for sale. This assumption was made
because our work here aims to compare the performance of the
different dehydration processes only. The gross profit estimated
here was based on the heating value of the sale gas (Eqn (2)); the
detail calculations of which was made available in Appendix B as
supporting information. This is because the pipeline-transported
natural gas is normally bought or sold on the basis of its higher
heating value (HHV):16
957

dration processes. The net profit we estimated here takes into Gross profit = annual HHV × cost of sale gas (2)

J Chem Technol Biotechnol 2019; 94: 955–963 © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry wileyonlinelibrary.com/jctb
 www.soci.org ZY Kong et al.

Figure 3. Process flow diagram for natural gas dehydration by absorption using TEG modified with the injection of a portion of sale gas (i.e., dry product
gas) as stripping gas into the regenerator.

Figure 4. Techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration process.

The TCOP was estimated following the methodology with ref-
erence to previous work.15 However, it is worth noting that the
cost estimation presented in this study is different, by a marginal
amount, relative to the previous work due to the different amount
of equipment used. In addition, the cost estimation for the strip-
ping gas dehydration process that employs nitrogen as stripping
gas is not included in the previous study. A detailed estimation for
the TCOP is made available in Appendices A and C with Table S1 to
958
The dehydration processes in the present study was simulated
using Aspen HYSYS software (v8.8). The wet gas composition and
operating condition are obtained from the work of Neagu and
Cursaru,15 as presented in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.
The results obtained in the present study were validated against
literature data in terms of HHV of the sale gas,16 given as follows:
( )∑
n
Hvid (sat) = 1 − xw xi Hviid (3)

S5 as supporting Informations. i=1

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Development of a techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration www.soci.org

different stripping gas flow rates for the stripping gas dehydration
Table 1. Feed gas composition (reproduced from Neagu and
Cursaru15 ) process.

Component Mass fraction (%)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Carbon dioxide 0.70
Technical analysis
Nitrogen 1.60
The first part of our work reproduced the conventional and strip-
Oxygen 0.02
ping gas dehydration processes from the work of Neagu
Methane 94.90
and Cursaru.15 The detail flow sheet and stream information
Ethane 2.50
of the two dehydration processes are made in Figure S1 to S2, and
Propane 0.20
Table S9 to S10, respectively. We validated the accuracy of our
i-Butane 0.003
reproduced model based on the TEG purity at different reboiler
n-Butane 0.003
temperatures for the conventional dehydration process (Fig. 5(a))
i-Pentane 0.001
and at different stripping gas flow rates for the stripping gas
n-Pentane 0.001
dehydration process (Fig. 5(b)). An average error of 0.01% was
n-Hexane 0.001
obtained for both dehydration processes, which highlights the
accuracy of our reproduced model.
Next, we simulated the stripping gas dehydration process that
Table 2. Input parameters to the absorber and the regenerator utilised nitrogen; the flow sheet and stream information of which
(reproduced from Neagu and Cursaru15 ) are made available in Figure S3 and Table S11. We compared the
resultant TEG purity against the two dehydration processes that
Parameter Value
we reproduced from the work of Neagu and Cursaru15 (Fig. 5).
General Upon scrupulous comparison, it becomes apparent that the sale
Property package Peng–Robinson (PR) gas can regenerate TEG to a higher purity relative to the nitrogen,
Wet gas flow rate (Nm3 d−1 ) 1 000 000 regardless of the stripping gas flow rate (Fig. 5). This is because
Absorber the sale gas contains mainly methane. Its use therefore increases
Top pressure 4080 kPa the partial pressure of methane and lowers the partial pressure
Total pressure drop 8 kPa of water. A reduction in partial pressure of water translates to
Number of stages 14 a decrease in mole fraction of water, which increases the purity
Overall stage efficiency 0.3 of regenerated TEG. Figure 6 shows the water dew point of sale
Tray size utility Bubble cap gas that can be obtained from the all dehydration processes
Number of flow paths 2 simulated. As anticipated, an increase in stripping gas flow rate (i.e.,
Tray spacing 0.6096 m higher purity on regenerated TEG) reduces the water dew point in
Max. flooding 85% sale gas.
Sieve tray flooding method Minimum Csb We next evaluated the suitability of the different dehydration
Regenerator processes to meet the water dew point specification (i.e., require-
Condenser Full reflux ment) set by the Malaysian requirement, which normally lies
Top pressure 102 kPa between +5 and −25 ∘ C. Our performance assessment was eval-
Total pressure drop 18 kPa uated based on the maximum water dew point limit of −25 ∘ C.
Feed temperature 100 ∘ C Figure 6 reveals that the maximum water dew point of −25 ∘ C
Number of stages 10 cannot be achieved using the range of stripping gas flow rate (i.e.
Reflux ratio 0.01 0.1% to 0.5% of the total sale gas flow rate) we reproduced from
Reboiler temperature 200 the work of Neagu and Cursaru.15 Therefore, in our evaluation, we
Packing column utility: have modified the stripping gas flow rate to cover from 0.1% to 1%
Raschig rings 1/16 in. wall, CSteel, 1 & of the total sale gas flow rate (Fig. 7).
1/2 in. The maximum water dew point specification of −25 ∘ C clearly
Packing column sections Section 1: stage 1 to stage 3 cannot be met using the conventional dehydration process (Fig. 7).
Section 2: stage 4 to stage 6 The specification, however, can be met using the stripping gas
Section 2: stage 7 to stage 10 dehydration process that consumed at least 260 Nm3 h−1 of sale
HETP 0.3048 m gas or, equivalently, 0.6% of the total sale gas flow rate. It can,
Section spacing 0.4 m alternatively, be achieved using a stripping gas dehydration pro-
Max. flooding 70% cess that relies on at least 435 Nm3 h−1 nitrogen (i.e., equivalent to
Packing correlation Robins 0.9% of the total sale gas flow rate). Apparently, using a portion
of sale gas as stripping gas can provide a more complete water
removal, thus requiring a lesser amount of stripping gas in com-
where Hvid (sat) is the HHV of the sale gas, x w is the mole fraction parison to nitrogen (Fig. 7). Nevertheless, it is worth noting that
of water when the gas is saturated under the specific conditions, the water dew point generated by all the dehydration processes
and x i and Hviid are the mole fraction and its respective HHV exceeds the minimum specification of +5 ∘ C.
for an individual component that is present in the natural gas Further, we examined the HHV of the sale gas (i.e., dry prod-
(e.g., methane). We additionally validated the accuracy of our uct gas) at different reboiler temperatures for the conventional
reproduced model based on the TEG purity at different reboiler dehydration process and at different stripping gas flow rates
959

temperatures for the conventional dehydration process and at for the stripping gas dehydration processes (Fig. 8). For the

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 www.soci.org
Figure 5. TEG purity comparison between our data and Neagu and Cursaru15 for (a) the conventional dehydration process and (b) the stripping gas
dehydration process using a portion of sale gas.
Figure 6. Water dew point comparison between the two stripping dehy-
dration processes against the conventional dehydration process.
conventional dehydration process (Fig. 8(a)), the HHV increases
with an increase in reboiler temperature. This is because a higher
reboiler temperature can generate a higher purity on regener-
ated TEG, as demonstrated in previous studies.15,17 For the two
stripping gas dehydration processes (Fig. 8(b)), using a portion of
sale gas generally produces higher HHV relative to nitrogen. This
is because using a portion of sale gas gives better TEG regenera-
tion performance in comparison to nitrogen (Fig. 9). The HHV of
the sale gas also increases with an increase in the stripping gas
flow rate, regardless of the type of stripping gas, in accord with
previous studies.18–20
Table 3 compares the HHV of sale gas that can be obtained
from all the dehydration processes at a fixed reboiler tempera-
ture (i.e., 200 ∘ C). In comparison to the conventional dehydration
process, stripping gas dehydration processes generally pro-
duce higher HHV, regardless of the stripping gas used. This is as
expected, because stripping gas dehydration processes improve
the TEG regeneration performance, resulting in more water being
removed from the dry product gas. A drier product gas leads to
higher HHV. Among the three dehydration processes studied,
960
the stripping gas dehydration process using sale gas produced
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ZY Kong et al.
Figure 7. Water dew point assessment for all the dehydration processes
simulated.
the highest HHV. The HHV obtained from our simulation stud-
ies were validated against the literature data,21 and an average
percentage error of less than 3% was obtained for all the three
dehydration processes simulated, which highlights the accuracy
of our results.
Economic analysis
In this section we performed an economic analysis that assesses
the net profit comparison for all the dehydration processes stud-
ied, which has never been evaluated in any of the previous study.15
The detailed calculations are made available in Appendix D and
also in Table S6 to S8 as supporting informations. The net profit
takes into consideration the difference between the gross profit
and the TCOP, as explained above.
The annual gross profit that can be obtained from different
dehydration processes are presented in Fig. 10. In most cases, the
stripping gas dehydration processes can generate higher annual
gross profits in comparison to the conventional dehydration pro-
cess. For example, at a stripping gas flow rate of 83 Nm3 h−1 , the
annual gross profit that can be realised from the stripping gas
dehydration processes using a portion of sale gas and nitrogen
J Chem Technol Biotechnol 2019; 94: 955–963
Development of a techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration www.soci.org

Figure 8. HHV of sale gas (a) at different reboiler temperatures for the conventional dehydration process and (b) at different stripping gas flow rates for
the two stripping gas dehydration processes.

that becomes available for sale because a portion of it was used

Figure 9. TEG purity comparison between stripping gas dehydration
process using nitrogen against the two dehydration processes, reproduced
from the work of Neagu and Cursaru.15
is about $32 543 013 and $32 609 717, respectively. On the other
hand, the annual gross profit for the conventional dehydration
process is only about $32 359 924. It was observed that the annual
gross profit for the stripping gas dehydration process using a por-
tion of sale gas decreases with an increase in stripping gas flow
rate (Fig. 10). This was attributed to the lower amount of sale gas
as stripping gas. The annual gross profit for the stripping gas
dehydration process using nitrogen, on the other hand, increases
marginally with an increase in stripping gas flow rate. This is
because the sale gas was not consumed as stripping gas as in
the previous stripping process. As a result, the stripping gas dehy-
dration process using nitrogen generates the highest amount of
gross profit among all dehydration processes. Notably, the annual
gross profit for the stripping gas dehydration process that con-
sumes a portion of sale gas becomes the lowest when the stripping
gas flow rate exceeds 350 Nm3 h−1 . This is attributed to the large
amount of profit loss due to the high consumption of sale gas as
stripping gas. Our technical analysis in the previous section (Fig. 7)
reveals that using a stripping gas flow rate of 260 Nm3 h−1 of sale
gas can sufficiently meet the maximum water dew point specifica-
tion (i.e., −25 ∘ C) in Malaysia. Therefore, it is not necessary to use
a stripping gas flow rate above 350 Nm3 h−1 , which would lead to
economic loss.
Figure 11 presents the total cost of production (TCOP), which
takes into consideration the sum of the annual capital cost (ACC)
and the COP to meet the maximum water dew point specification
in Malaysia. The detailed calculations for the TCOP are made
available in the Appendices A and C (Supporting Information).
The stripping gas dehydration process that employed a portion
of sale gas has the lowest TCOP of about $3 211 410 (Fig. 11). This
was mainly attributed to the savings in the annual COP since
the required stripping gas (i.e., sale gas) was obtained from the
dehydration process itself. The stripping gas dehydration process

Table 3. HHV comparison between conventional dehydration process and stripping gas dehydration process

Stripping gas dehydration process

Stripping gas Sale gas Nitrogen Conventional dehydration process
Stripping gas flow rate (% of sale gas flow rate) HHV (kJ kmol−1 ) HHV (kJ kmol−1 )

83 Nm3 h−1 (0.2) 890 467 890 460

167 Nm3 h−1 (0.4) 890 483 890 474
280 Nm3 h−1 (0.6) 890 490 890 482 883 640
374 Nm3 h−1 (0.8) 890 494 890 485
467 Nm3 h−1 (1) 890 495 890 486
961

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 www.soci.org
Figure 10. Annual gross profit that can be generated from different
dehydration processes at a reboiler temperature of 200 ∘ C.
Figure 11. Total cost of production estimation for the three dehydration
processes.
that employs nitrogen, on the other hand, has the highest TCOP, of
about $4 806 196, among the three dehydration processes studied.
This was mainly attributed to the high annual COP since the
required nitrogen comes externally. It is worth noting that the ACC
for all the three dehydration processes is approximately 12% of
the TCOP, which is typical for chemical processes, as suggested by
Towler and Sinnott.22
Figure 12 shows the net profit comparison for the three dehydra-
tion processes that take into consideration the difference between
gross profit and TCOP. The stripping gas dehydration process that
employed a portion of sale gas generates the highest net profit
among the three dehydration processes for all stripping gas flow
rates simulated (Fig. 12). The stripping gas dehydration process
that employed nitrogen nonetheless generates the lowest amount
of net profit, mainly due to the high TCOP that comes from the
external injection of nitrogen.
Figure 13 summarizes the techno-economic analysis for the
three dehydration processes to meet the maximum water dew
point specification (i.e. −25 ∘ C) set by the regulatory authority for
pipeline-transported natural gas in Malaysia. Although the con-
ventional dehydration process cannot meet the maximum water
dew point specification, it can still be of use since the water
dew point obtained exceeds the minimum (i.e. lower limit) water
dew point specification of +5 ∘ C. To meet the maximum water
962
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ZY Kong et al.
Figure 12. Net profit comparison for the three dehydration processes.
dew point specification, the stripping gas dehydration process
requires either 260 Nm3 h−1 of sale gas or 435 Nm3 h−1 of nitro-
gen as stripping gas. This translates to an annual net profit of
about $29 399 269 and $27 804 430 for the stripping gas that con-
sumes sale gas and nitrogen, respectively. Notably, the net profit
generated from the stripping gas dehydration process, which
consumes a portion of sale gas, is about $1.6 million higher
than the stripping gas dehydration process that consumes nitro-
gen. Likewise, the net profit is about $300 000 higher relative
to the conventional dehydration process. Therefore, it is recom-
mended to use the stripping gas dehydration process that con-
sumes a portion of sale gas to simultaneously maximize the
net profit margin and to meet the maximum water dew point
specification.
CONCLUSION
We have developed a techno-economic framework to determine
the most economic dehydration process that meets the maxi-
mum water dew point requirement set by local authorities (e.g.
Malaysia) for pipeline-transported natural gas. The dehydration
processes investigated here includes the conventional dehydra-
tion process and stripping gas dehydration processes using a
portion of sale gas or nitrogen. Our techno-economic analysis
demonstrates that all three dehydration processes can suitably
meet the minimum water dew point specification (i.e. +5 ∘ C)
in Malaysia. However, the maximum water dew point specifica-
tion (i.e. −25 ∘ C) can only be achieved by using the stripping gas
dehydration process, which consumes more than 260 Nm3 h−1 of
sale gas or 435 Nm3 h−1 of nitrogen. Our techno-economic anal-
ysis further reveals that using the stripping gas dehydration pro-
cess that consumes 260 Nm3 h−1 of sale gas can generate the
highest annual net profit margin, of about $29 399 269. Such
a profit margin is higher than with the stripping gas dehydra-
tion process using nitrogen and the conventional dehydration
process by about $1.6 million and $300 000, respectively. It is
hypothetically possible to further maximize the net profit mar-
gin by using the volatile hydrocarbon emitted from the over-
head vapour of the flash tank or regenerator (i.e. DRIZO process)
instead of using a portion of sale gas as stripping gas. There-
fore, our next study is intended to perform a techno-economic
analysis on the DRIZO process that could potentially minimize
profit loss.
J Chem Technol Biotechnol 2019; 94: 955–963
Development of a techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration
Figure 13. Techno-economic analysis for the three dehydration processes
to meet the maximum water dew point specification (i.e. −25 ∘ C) in
Malaysia.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Zong Yang Kong gratefully acknowledges the Full Fee-Waiver
Studentship provided by Swinburne University of Technology
Sarawak Campus.
Supporting Information
Supporting information may be found in the online version of this
article.
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Supplementary Materials
Appendix A – Steps involved for cost estimation

The total cost of production (TCOP) is given as:

 ൌ  ൅  (1)
where COP and ACC represents cost of production and annual capital cost, respectively. Notably,
the ACC was converted from the fixed capital investment (FCI) of the plant into a constant series
of payment for every year of the plant’s life, given as:
ሺ‹ሺͳ ൅ ‹ሻ୬ ሻ (2)
 ൌ  ή
ሺሺͳ ൅ ‹ሻ୬ െ ͳሻ
where i is the interest rate and n is the project life time. The FCI is given as:
 ൌ  ൅  ൅  ൅  (3)
where ISBL represent the inside battery limits investment that includes the direct field cost (e.g.,
costs of major equipment, bulk items, and civil work) and the indirect field cost (e.g., temporary
construction costs, field expenses, and miscellaneous overhead items), OSBL is the offsite cost,
EC is the engineering cost (e.g., contractor charges), and CO is the contingency sum. The ISBL in
the present study includes only the direct field cost and it was reduced to the fixed capital cost
(FCC). The FCC is mainly estimated based on the purchase cost of the major equipment required
for the process. Other cost associated to the major equipment such as foundation and structural
work are estimated based on factors of each equipment cost. The Hand factor proposes a formula
for the FCC estimation of a plant, given as:
୧ୀ୑ (4)
 ൌ  ෍ሺ ή ୣ ሻ
୧ୀଵ

where Ce is the cost of each major equipment and F is the Hand’s installation factor for each major
equipment type as specified in Appendix C.
The cost of each major equipment (Ce) can be estimated as:
ୣ ൌ ƒ ൅ „ ή  ୬ (5)
where a and b are cost constant, S is the size parameter of the equipment, and n is the exponent for
that type of equipment. These constants are also made available in Appendix C. Notably, the cost
of major equipment (Ce) estimated here are based on carbon steel. Equipment made from other
material must be correlated with the appropriate material factor as recommended by (22). Also, it

1
is worth noting that these purchased cost are calculated based on the Chemical Engineering Plant
Cost Index (CEPCI) for January 2006 of 478.6. This CEPCI must be updated with the latest value
available using the following equation:
‘•–‹†‡š‹›‡ƒ” (6)
‘•–‹›‡ƒ” ൌ ‘•–‹›‡ƒ” ή
‘•–‹†‡š‹›‡ƒ”
where cost in year A represent the cost for which latest CEPCI is available (i.e., 2017), cost in year
B is the cost for the year 2006. The latest CEPCI is 567.5 as of 2017 and all monetary values are
done in US dollars.
The cost of production (COP) can be estimated as:
 ൌ  ൅  (7)
where VCOP and FCOP are variable and fixed cost of production, respectively. The VCOP are
sum of all the variable cost of production that are proportional to the plant’s output or operation
rate. The FCOP are sum of all the fixed cost of production that are covered regardless of the plant
operation. The VCOP and FCOP are direct calculation that are estimated from either the operating
plant data or as factors, as shown in Table S1. It was assumed that the plant will operate 8000 hr
yr-1.

2
Table S1. Components for VCOP and FCOP estimation (15).
Variable cost of production (VCOP)
TEG cost 2513.28 $ ton-1 TEG
Nitrogen gas cost 0.45 $ m-3
Steam cost 12 $ ton-1
Electricity cost 0.10 $ kWh-1
Miscellaneous (e.g., waste water treatment) 2% of VCOP
Fixed cost of production (FCOP)
Operating labour (OL) 25,000 $ yr-1 for each operator
Supervision (S) 25% of OL
Direct salary overhead (DSO) 50% of (OL + S)
Maintenance (M) 3% of ISBL
Property taxes and insurance 2% of ISBL
Rental of land and buildings 1% of ISBL + OSBL
General plant overhead 65% of (OL+S+DSO+M)
Environmental charges 1% of ISBL + OSBL

Appendix B – Example for profit estimation (16)

The gross profit is estimated based on the higher heating value as follows:

”‘••’”‘ˆ‹– ൌ ƒ—ƒŽ ൈ …‘•–‘ˆ•ƒŽ‡‰ƒ• (8)
The value of annual HHV can be obtained from Aspen Hysys. For example, the annual HHV for
the conventional dehydration process at 200 oC is 12,446,124 MMBTU per annum. The cost of
the sale gas is taken as $2.60 per MMBTU. Therefore, using Equation 8, the gross profit was
found to be $32,359,923 per annum. This gross profit can be further used to estimate the net profit
after deducting the TCOP using Equation 1 in the manuscript.

3
Appendix C – Data for cost estimation (15)

Table S2. Cost of vessels in 2006 (15).

Equipment Size parameter Constant and exponent in Equipment cost,
type Equation 5 Ce, $
S Value a b n
Absorber Shell mass, 17,919.18 -10000 600 0.6 214,429
kg
Bubble cap Diameter, m 1.52 200 240 2.0
trays
Regenerator Shell mass, 423.4 -10000 600 0.6 13,330
kg
304 Raschig Volume, m3 0.196 0 3700 1.0
ring
Flash separator Shell mass, 316.9 -10000 600 0.6 8999
kg

Table S3. Cost of heat exchangers in 2006 (15).

Equipment type Size parameter Constant and exponent in Equipment
Equation 5 cost, Ce, $
S Value a b n
Lean/Rich heat Area, m2 5.2 10,000 88 1.0 14,144
exchanger (10*)
Lean/Dry gas heat Area, m2 16 10,000 88 1.2 14,830
exchanger
Reboiler Area, m2 10.3 14,000 83 1.0 19,311
Condenser Area, m2 0.1 (1*) 500 1100 1.0 2,080
*Minimum area needed to be used as size parameter for which a, b, n constants are available.

4
Table S4. Cost of pumps and other miscellaneous items at year 2006 (15).
Equipment type Size parameter Constant and exponent in Equipment cost,
Equation 5 Ce, $
S Value a b n
Mixer Flow, l s-1 0.265 780 62 0.8 1042
Pump Flow, l s-1 0.265 3300 48 1.2 8605
Electrical motors for Power, 1.55 920 600 0.7 3471
pump kW

Table S5. Installation F factors for Hand factor (15).

Equipment type Installation factor F
Absorber and Regenerator 4
Flash separator 4
All heat exchangers including condenser and reboiler 3.5
Pump 4
Miscellaneous (e.g., mixer) 2.5

Appendix D – Results for cost estimation

Table S6 shows the comparison for the fixed capital cost between the three dehydration processes.
In the conventional dehydration process (Figure 1 in the manuscript), the main equipment that
were included in the plant cost calculations are the absorber, the regenerator, flash separator, two
heat exchangers, one static mixer, and one centrifugal pump with one electrical motor. A spare
centrifugal pump with its electrical motor that is kept in the warehouse was also included in the
FCC of the plant. For the absorber and regenerator, Equation 5 was applied separately for the
column shell and for the internal trays or packing. For the stripping gas dehydration process using
a portion of sale gas, two additional equipment that were included in the FCC are a heater and a
splitter (Figure 3 in manuscript). The FCC for the stripping gas dehydration process that utilises
external nitrogen gas is similar to the conventional dehydration process since it does not require
any additional equipment.

5
 The overall FCI for the three dehydration processes understudied are shown in Table S7.
The FCI was calculated as the sum of the cost for ISBL, OSBL, EC, and CO (Equation 3). The
OSBL cost was assumed to be 30% of the ISBL whereas the CO was assumed to be 10% of the
sum of ISBL and OSBL (22). It is worth noting that the FCI estimation for Equation 3 to Equation
5 were estimated based on CEPCI of 2006. Therefore, the FCI estimation was updated to the
CEPIC of 2017 using Equation 6. From Table S7, it was observed that the FCI for stripping gas
dehydration process that employed a portion of sale gas is about 1% higher than the conventional
dehydration process. Such minor incremental in FCI was obviously attributed to the two
supplementary equipment (i.e., a heater and a splitter) required. An analogous FCI was observed
between the stripping gas dehydration process that employs nitrogen gas and the conventional
dehydration process. This result is expected since both processes have the same number of
equipment.

6
Table S6. Fixed capital cost comparison between the three dehydration processes.
Equipment Conventional dehydration process Stripping gas dehydration process Stripping gas dehydration process
Type using sale gas using nitrogen
Equipment cost Fixed capital Equipment cost Fixed capital Equipment cost Fixed capital
Ce, $ cost C, $ Ce, $ cost C, $ Ce, $ cost C, $
Absorber 214,429 857,717 214,429 857,717 214,429 857,717
Regenerator 13,330 53,320 13,330 53,320 13,330 53,320
Flash separator 8,999 35,996 8,999 35,996 8,999 35,996
Lean/Rich heat
exchanger 14,144 49,504 14,144 49,504 14,144 49,504
Lean/Dry gas
heat exchanger 14,830 51,905 14,825 51,905 14,825 51,905
Reboiler 19,311 67,589 19,279 67,589 19,279 67,589
Condenser 2,080 7,280 2,080 7,280 2,080 7,280
Mixer 1,042 2,605 1,042 2,605 1,042 2,605
Pump with
motor 8,605 30,190 8,605 30,190 8,605 30,190
Splitter 2,169 5,423
Heater 2,080 7,280
Total 1,156,105 1,168,808 1,156,105

7
Table S7. The fixed capital investment (FCI) for the three dehydration processes.
Cost, $ Conventional dehydration Stripping gas dehydration Stripping gas dehydration
process process using sale gas process using nitrogen
ISBL 1,156,105 1,168,808 1,156,105
OSBL 346,831 350,642 346,831
EC 450,881 455,835 450,881
CO 150,294 151,945 150,294
FCI (2006 prices) 2,104,111 2,127,230 2,104,111
FCI (2017 prices) 2,494,950 2,522,364 2,494,950

8
The estimated annual cost of production (COP) for the three dehydration processes understudied
are presented in Table S8. The individual component for the variable and fixed cost of production
(i.e., VCOP and FCOP) were estimated based on their respective correlation obtained from
literature, given in Table S1. The stripping gas dehydration process that consumes nitrogen has
the highest annual VCOP (Table S8). This is as expected because the required nitrogen gas comes
from external injection. Then, all the three dehydration processes have similar FCOP mainly
because most of the FCOP component depends on the ISBL and/or OSBL and all the three
dehydration processes has marginal ISBL and/or OSBL.

9
Table S8. Annual cost of production (COP) estimation for the three dehydration processes.
Cost, $ Conventional dehydration Stripping gas dehydration Stripping gas dehydration
process process using sale gas process using nitrogen
Variable cost of production (VCOP)
TEG cost (including TEG loss) 18,739 4,973 1,864
Steam cost 18,806 18,778 18,778
Electrical cost 800,000 800,000 800,000
Miscellaneous cost 17,093 16,811 48,707
Nitrogen cost - - 1,566,000
Annual VCOP 854,958 840,562 2,435,349
Fixed cost of production (FCOP)
Operating labour (OL) 600,000 600,000 600,000
Supervision (S) 150,000 150,000 150,000
Direct salary overhead (DSO) 375,000 375,000 375,000
Maintenance (M) 34,683 35,064 35,064
Property taxes and insurance 23,122 23,376 23,376
Rent of land 15,029 15,195 15,195
General plant overhead 753,794 754,042 754,042
Environmental charges 15,029 15,194 15,195
Annual FCOP 1,966,658 1,967,871 1,967,871
Cost of production (COP) 2,821,616 2,808,433 4,403,220

10
Appendix E – Detailed Results for cost estimation

Figure S1. Flowsheet for the conventional dehydration process

11
Table S9. Stream data for the conventional dehydration process
Wet gas to absorber TEG feed Sale gas HC Regenerator feed Overhead vapour
Vapour fraction 1 0 1 1 0 1
Temperature (oC) 29 34 34 33 100 124
Pressure (kPa) 4100 4100 4080 130 120 102
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 31352 1069 31315 3 1104 36

12
Figure S2. Flowsheet for the stripping gas dehydration process using a portion of sale gas

13
Table S10. Stream data for the stripping gas dehydration process using a portion of sale gas
Wet gas to absorber TEG feed Sale gas HC Regenerator feed Overhead vapour
Vapour fraction 1 0 1 1 0 1
Temperature (oC) 29 34 34 33 100 96
Pressure (kPa) 4100 4100 4080 130 120 102
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 31352 1105 31315 3 1105 67

14
Figure S3. Flowsheet for the stripping gas dehydration process using nitrogen gas

15
Table S11. Stream data for the stripping gas dehydration process using nitrogen gas
Wet gas to absorber TEG feed Sale gas HC Regenerator feed Overhead vapour
Vapour fraction 1 0 1 1 0 1
Temperature (oC) 29 34 34 33 100 70
Pressure (kPa) 4100 4100 4080 130 120 102
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 31352 1148 31315 3 1184 236

16
Chapter 5. Extension of the developed techno-economic framework

This chapter extends the previously developed techno-economic framework in Chapter 4 to

evaluate the performance of DRIZO process from techno-economic perspective. As described in
Chapter 4, it is theoretically possible to further improve the dehydration process performance and
net profit by using the volatile hydrocarbon as stripping gas, which is supposedly emitted from the
flash tank or regenerator overhead (i.e., DRIZO process) instead of using a portion of sale gas as
stripping gas.

In this chapter, three different DRIZO configurations based on the injection of stripping gas using
(i) regenerator overhead, (ii) flash vapour, and (iii) both regenerator overhead and flash vapour,
are evaluated. The performance comparison between these different configurations has never been
explored in the existing literature. Here, the best DRIZO configuration obtained is compared
against the other dehydration processes from Chapter 4 to further verify the hypothesis if DRIZO
process can provide better performance in comparison to the stripping gas dehydration process
from techno-economic perspective.

This chapter was published as a research paper in South African Journal of Chemical Engineering:
Kong, Z.Y., Wee, X.J.M., Ahmed, M., Yu, A., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2020, Development of a techno-
economic framework for natural gas dehydration via absorption using tri-ethylene glycol: A
comparative study between DRIZO and other dehydration processes. S. Afr. J. Chem. Eng. 31, 17-
24. doi:10.1016/j.sajce.2019.11.001

80
 6RXWK$IULFDQ-RXUQDORI&KHPLFDO(QJLQHHULQJ²

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

South African Journal of Chemical Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sajce

Development of a techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration

via absorption using tri-ethylene glycol: A comparative study between
DRIZO and other dehydration processes
Zong Yang Konga, Xin Jie Melvin Weea, Ahmed Mahmouda, Aimin Yub, Shaomin Liuc,
Jaka Sunarsoa,∗
a
Research Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science, Swinburne University of Technology, Jalan Simpang Tiga, 93350, Kuching,
Sarawak, Malaysia
b
Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, Australia
c
Department of Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, Perth, WA, 6845, Australia

A R T I C L E I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this work, the previously developed techno-economic framework in Kong et al. (2018) is extended to evaluate
Dehydration three different configurations of DRIZO process for natural gas dehydration: Case (i) – recycling of the re-
Glycol regeneration generator overhead, Case (ii) – recycling of the flash vapour, and Case (iii) – recycling of both the flash vapour
Natural gas and the regenerator overhead into the dehydration system. The best configuration of DRIZO process is Case (iii),
Tri-ethylene glycol
which is used as a representative case for subsequent comparison against other dehydration processes evaluated
Aspen HYSYS
in our previous work. Our techno-economic analysis reveals that Case (iii) can regenerate tri-ethylene glycol
Techno-economic analysis
(TEG) with the highest purity and the lowest TEG loss rate and volatile organic compound (VOC) emission. This
translates to the lower water content in the dry product gas and also the higher HHV relative to Case (i) and Case
(ii). A higher HHV generally signifies a higher gross profit margin. Nevertheless, DRIZO process is not eco-
nomically feasible in comparison to the other dehydration processes from our previous work, mainly because of
the high capital expenditure and the associated operating cost. Relative to the other dehydration processes,
although the gross profit margin for DRIZO process is about $100,000 higher, it is not sufficient to compensate
the high capital and operating expenses due to the high TCOP of about $500,000 to $600,000. Therefore, our
analysis recommends the use of stripping gas dehydration process that consumes a portion of dry product gas to
achieve the desired water dew point specification for its highest gross profit margin.

1. Introduction
Absorption using TEG is a widely used technology for the dehy-
dration of natural gas (Piemonte et al., 2012). Such process is manda-
tory because the presence of water vapour in natural gas stream can
cause formation of hydrate in the transporting pipelines that leads to
pipeline corrosion (Carroll, 2014). The presence of water vapour fur-
ther reduces the natural gas combustion efficiency and may induce the
blockage of process equipment and instrumentation, particularly when
the natural gas has high content of CO2 and H2S (Gong et al., 2010).
However, one of the main limitations of the conventional absorption
process using TEG is the maximum purity of the regenerated TEG that is
confined to 98.8 wt % (Neagu and Cursaru, 2017). This limitation
lowers the absorption process efficiency; resulting in substantial
amount of water content leftover in the supposedly dry product gas
(sale gas) (Rahimpour et al., 2013). To attain a more complete water
removal, other suitable processes have been developed to improve the
TEG purity limit such as the injection of stripping gas, Stahl column,
Coldfinger, and supersonic separation technologies (Kong et al., 2018a;
Niknam et al., 2017).
A recent work by Neagu and Cursaru (2017) has suggested the
techno-economic feasibility of the enhanced natural gas dehydration
process that employs stripping gas injection using the dry product gas.
They assessed such process with respect to the conventional dehydra-
tion process and reported that such enhanced process can increase the
TEG purity without imposing much additional capital cost. In their
work however, they have not evaluated the profits for these two de-
hydration processes. Since they have consumed a portion of the dry

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: barryjakasunarso@yahoo.com, jsunarso@swinburne.edu.my (J. Sunarso).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajce.2019.11.001
Received 18 June 2019; Received in revised form 4 November 2019; Accepted 4 November 2019
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Z.Y. Kong, et al. 6RXWK$IULFDQ-RXUQDORI&KHPLFDO(QJLQHHULQJ²

Table 1
TEG regeneration in two different stripping gas dehydration processes relative to conventional dehydration process.
Conventional dehydration Stripping gas dehydration using nitrogen Stripping gas dehydration using a portion of dry product gas

No injection of stripping gas Injection of stripping gas into the reboiler of the regeneration column

product gas (sale gas) as the stripping gas, lower amount of the dry
product gas would be available for sale, which may lead to profit re-
duction for their proposed process. Following their work, we developed
a techno-economic framework that takes into account the profit com-
parison for these dehydration processes in our previous study (Kong
et al., 2018c). In our previous work, we examined the techno-economic
feasibility of the conventional dehydration process and the enhanced
stripping gas dehydration processes using a portion of dry product gas
and nitrogen gas, to meet the maximum water dew point requirement
of −25 °C as specified by the Malaysian local authority for pipeline-
transported natural gas. The main difference between these dehydra-
tion processes is the TEG regeneration section as explained in Table 1. A
detailed explanation on the stripping gas mechanism are available in
our review paper (Kong et al., 2018a).
Our previous work indicates that the maximum water dew point
specification of −25 °C can be achieved by either using stripping gas
dehydration process that consumes at least 260 Nm3 hr−1 of sale gas or
435 Nm3 hr−1 of nitrogen (Fig. 1). Relative to the use of nitrogen gas,
the consumption of sale gas as stripping gas can generate a higher net
profit margin. For instance, an optimum stripping gas flowrate of 260
Nm3 hr−1 using the sale gas generates the highest annual net profit
margin of about $29 million. This net profit margin is about $1.6 mil-
lion higher than the stripping gas dehydration process that consumes
nitrogen. Likewise, the net profit is about $300,000 higher in com-
parison to the conventional dehydration process. Therefore, our pre-
vious work recommends the use of sale gas as stripping gas to maximise
the net profit margin and to meet the maximum water dew point spe-
cification concomitantly. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the
consumption of sale gas as stripping gas reduces the amount of product
gas for sale, thus restraining the dehydration process from achieving
greater profit.
To maximise the net profit for the dehydration plant, other types of
stripping gas alternatives are available such as volatile hydrocarbons Fig. 1. Net profit for the different dehydration processes (Reproduced from
(e.g., C5+) and/or BTEX gases (i.e., Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, (Kong et al., 2018c)).
and Xylene), which can actually be obtained from the dehydration
process itself (DRIZO process). Rather than using the dry product gas as 2014; Saidi et al., 2014). Most of the existing studies indicate the po-
the stripping gas, these volatile hydrocarbon gases can be exploited, tential of DRIZO process to generate the highest purity on regenerated
which could possibly minimise the profit reduction. Our literature TEG. Nevertheless, these studies also suggest that DRIZO process re-
survey reveals that only several studies have evaluated the DRIZO quires higher capital expenditure due to the presence of additional
process performance (Eldemerdash and Kamarudin, 2016; Jokar et al., equipment such as a three-phase separator, a pump, and a heat


Z.Y. Kong, et al.
Fig. 2. Process flow diagram for the conventional DRIZO process (Case (i)).
exchanger, relative to the other dehydration processes. At present, the
economic potential of DRIZO process compared to the other dehydra-
tion processes remains unclear. No previous studies have ever per-
formed economic analyses on DRIZO process in comparison to the other
dehydration processes (Kong et al., 2018a). Therefore, this work aims to
determine the techno-economic feasibility of DRIZO process to comply
with the water dew point requirement specified by the Malaysian local
authority.
2. DRIZO process description
The process flow diagram for the DRIZO process is presented in
Fig. 2. Such process is similar to the conventional dehydration process
as explained in our previous study except for the TEG regeneration
section (Kong et al., 2018a, 2018b; 2018c). Here, the water vapour,
volatile hydrocarbons, and very minor amount of TEG that are removed
from the regenerator overhead are further condensed using a cooler
before it is fed into a three-phase separator for further separation (Øi
and Tyvand Selstø, 2002). The volatile hydrocarbons are separated in
the three-phase separator and heated before returned to the reboiler as
the stripping gas via a pump.
3. Methodology
The techno-economic analysis in this study was performed fol-
lowing the identical framework we developed in our previous work
(Kong et al., 2018c). Here, three different configurations for DRIZO
processes are simulated. Case (i) follows the exact conventional DRIZO
configuration as explained in Section 2 (Fig. 2). Case (ii) relies on the
use of flash vapour stream as the stripping gas instead of the volatile
hydrocarbons stream from the regenerator overhead (Fig. 3). This
configuration does not require any additional equipment because the
operating conditions of the stripping gas and the regenerator remain
unchanged. Therefore, the stripping gas in Case (ii) is injected directly
into the reboiler. Case (iii) makes use of both the volatile hydrocarbons
stream from the regenerator overhead and the flash vapour stream as
the stripping gas (Fig. 4). The operating conditions of the regenerator

6RXWK$IULFDQ-RXUQDORI&KHPLFDO(QJLQHHULQJ²
overhead in Case (iii) however is altered following the identical me-
chanism as Case (i) to match the operating conditions of the re-
generator.
Following this, the best DRIZO configuration was determined based
on four criteria: least water content in the dry product gas, least volatile
organic compound (VOC) emission, least TEG loss rate, and highest
higher heating value (HHV) for the dry product gas. Note that this study
applies the water dew point specification that are based on Malaysian
local authority requirement but our techno-economic analysis is also
applicable to determine the water dew point specification stipulated by
other regulatory authority (e.g., Alaska). The VOC emission in this work
are made up of i-Pentane, n-Pentane, and n-Hexane instead of the
conventional BTEX gases as reported in most of the previous works
(Eldemerdash and Kamarudin, 2016; Jokar et al., 2014; Saidi et al.,
2014). This is since the inlet gas composition (i.e., natural gas com-
position) used in the present work does not contain any BTEX gases.
Further, this work is a continuation of our previous work and therefore,
we use the same natural gas composition to enable accurate comparison
between our current and previous work (Kong et al., 2018c). The total
TEG loss rate here, on the other hand, is made up of the loss rate from
the absorber, the flash tank, and the regenerator overhead. The TEG
loss rate due to thermal degradation nonetheless is not taken into
consideration because the reboiler in this work operates at 200 °C,
which is a few degree lower than the thermal degradation temperature
of TEG (i.e., 204 °C).
Accordingly, the best DRIZO configuration is compared against
other dehydration processes from our previous work in terms of tech-
nical and economic performances (Kong et al., 2018c). Here, it is worth
mentioning that the stripping gas dehydration processes in our previous
work can achieve the maximum water dew point specification of
−25 °C stipulated by the Malaysian local authority. Our DRIZO con-
figuration in the present work nonetheless can only achieve a maximum
water dew point of −20 °C due to the limited flowrate in the present
DRIZO configuration since it relies solely on the materials recycle
within the process itself. Therefore, we have set the water dew point in
the present work to be −20 °C for all dehydration processes to make
fair comparison.
Z.Y. Kong, et al. 6RXWK$IULFDQ-RXUQDORI&KHPLFDO(QJLQHHULQJ²

Fig. 3. Case (ii) Taking flash vapour as the stripping gas.

Then, we perform economic analysis on the best DRIZO configura-
tion that were evaluated based on the net profit obtained from the
different dehydration processes. It is worth noting that the net profit
here takes into account the gross profit and the total cost of production
(TCOP), given as:
Net profit = Gross profit − TCOP (1)
Here, for the sake of comparison, we assume that the sale gas that
comes out from the dehydration process are available for sale.
However, in actual condition, it is worth noting that the sale gas that
comes out from the dehydration process has to be subjected to several
other purification processes (e.g., NGL recovery) before being sold. The
gross profit here is estimated based on the HHV of the sale gas while the
TCOP is estimated following the identical steps used in our previous
work (Kong et al., 2018c). The result summary for the cost estimation is
given in Appendix A.
Fig. 5 displays the framework of our present work, which are
modified from our previous techno-economic analysis (Kong et al.,
2018c). All simulations in this work were performed using Aspen
HYSYS software (v8.8) with Peng-Robinson fluid package. This is since

Fig. 4. Case (iii) Blending regenerator overhead and flash vapour as the stripping gas.


Z.Y. Kong, et al. 6RXWK$IULFDQ-RXUQDORI&KHPLFDO(QJLQHHULQJ²

Fig. 5. Techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration process using DRIZO.

Peng-Robinson fluid package has a high level of accuracy over a wide
range of operating conditions as evidenced by its usage in several other
simulations studies on natural gas dehydration (Arubi and Duru, 2008;
Baktash et al., 2010; Behbahani et al., 2016; El Mawgoud et al., 2015;
Eldemerdash and Kamarudin, 2016; Isa et al., 2013; Neagu and
Cursaru, 2017; Øi and Tyvand Selstø, 2002). This work uses the same
wet gas composition and operating condition as per our previous work
(Kong et al., 2018c) that are given in Appendix B.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Technical analysis
Table 2 summarises the simulation results for the three DRIZO
processes. The regenerated TEG purities for both Cases (i) and (ii) are
not enhanced significantly with respect to the conventional dehydration
process (Table 2). This is mainly due to the limited amount of stripping
gas (i.e., volatile hydrocarbon) available from both the regenerator
overhead and the flash vapour stream in the present work. The TEG
purity can be further improved by using higher amount of stripping gas
flowrate (e.g., higher regenerator overhead flowrate) as shown in our
previous work (Kong et al., 2018c). It can also be improved by using a
stripping gas with higher volatile hydrocarbon content (e.g., natural gas
with BTEX composition) as demonstrated in other works (Eldemerdash
and Kamarudin, 2016; Jokar et al., 2014; Saidi et al., 2014).
The TEG loss rates for Cases (i) and (ii) however are lower with
respect to the conventional dehydration process. This is because the
majority of these TEG losses come from the regenerator overhead and
the flash vapour stream. The recycle of these two streams back to the
dehydration system, which occurs in Case (iii), results into an even
lower TEG loss rate. The TEG loss rate for Case (i) in particular, is
significantly lower in comparison to Case (ii) given the higher TEG
composition present in the regenerator overhead, which is recycled
back as the stripping gas. This is in agreement with our previous study,
which demonstrates that TEG loss rate in the regenerator can contribute
up to 85% of the overall TEG loss rate (Kong et al., 2018b).
Table 2 also shows the VOC emission from the three DRIZO pro-
cesses with respect to the conventional dehydration process. The VOC
emission for Case (i) is reduced significantly relative to the conven-
tional case (Table 2). This is because the regenerator overhead that
contains the highest VOC emission is recycled back to the dehydration
system as the stripping gas. Such finding is in agreement with previous

Table 2
Result summary for the three DRIZO processes relative to the conventional dehydration process.
Parameters Conventional dehydration process Case (i) Case (ii) Case (iii)

Lean TEG purity, wt. % 98.73 98.90 98.74 99.77

TEG loss rate, kg hr−1 0.26 0.13 0.23 0.03
VOC emissions, ton yr−1 0.071 0.0087 0.070 0.000011
Sale gas water content, lb MMSCF−1 3.92 2.58 3.88 1.72
Sale gas water dew point, °C −6.55 −7.87 −6.55 −20.02
Sale gas HHV, kJ kmol−1 883,655 890,446 890,439 890,485


Z.Y. Kong, et al.
studies (Eldemerdash and Kamarudin, 2016; Jokar et al., 2014; Saidi
et al., 2014). The VOC emission for Case (ii) remains identical relative
to the conventional case. This is attributed to the fact that most of the
VOC gases remain present in the liquid phase within the rich-TEG
stream during the flash separation process (Braek et al., 2001). As a
result, the recycle of flash vapour stream does not contribute sig-
nificantly towards the dehydration process performance.
In Cases (i) and (ii), the water content in the dry product gas is not
reduced significantly relative to the conventional case. It only decreases
by about 1.4 lb MMSCF−1 and 0.05 lb MMSCF−1 for Case (i) and Case
(ii), respectively. The water dew point in dry product gas, accordingly,
decreases by about 1 °C for Case (i) and remains identical for Case (ii).
As anticipated, a minor improvement in the regenerated TEG purity
generally translates to a low reduction in water dew point of the dry
product gas.
Table 2 additionally displays the Higher Heating Value (HHV) of the
dry product gas for the three simulated DRIZO processes. In comparison
to the conventional dehydration process, the DRIZO processes generate
a higher HHV, regardless of the source of the stripping gas. As antici-
pated, the use of stripping gas improves the TEG regeneration perfor-
mance; leading to more water being removed from the dry product gas.
A drier product gas resulted in a higher HHV. This result is in agree-
ment with previous studies (Kong et al., 2018c).
Overall, it is observed that both Cases (i) and (ii) do not bring sig-
nificant improvement to the dehydration processes (Table 2). There-
fore, we investigate an additional Case (iii) whereby the stripping gas is
made up of a combination of the flash vapour stream and the re-
generator overhead. To our knowledge, this configuration has never
been considered in the existing literature. Such recycling configuration
enables an increase in the TEG purity limit up to 99.77 wt % and a
reduction in the TEG loss rate by about 10 times relative to the con-
ventional case, to about 0.03 kg h−1. The VOC emission for Case (iii) is
also reduced by about 100% in comparison to the conventional case;
giving the lowest VOC emission among the three DRIZO processes. The
water content in the dry product gas is additionally reduced sig-
nificantly by about 2 lb MMSCF−1, which results into further reduction
in water dew point of the dry product gas by about 66%. Case (iii)
furthermore provides the highest HHV for the dry product gas com-
pared to the rest of the dehydration processes.
Following this, we further investigate the effect of different com-
bination ratio for the regenerator overhead and the flash vapour stream.
The flash vapour stream is recycled completely (i.e., fixed flowrate) in
all cases given its very low flowrate. The flowrate of the regenerator is
recycled in various ratio between 0 and 1, with the remaining purged
out of the dehydration process.
Fig. 6 shows the regenerated TEG purity and the TEG loss rate at
different regenerator overhead recycle ratio. The use of a recycle ratio
of 1 (i.e., a complete recycle of the regenerator overhead stream) results
Fig. 6. TEG purity and TEG loss rate at different regenerator overhead recycle
ratio for DRIZO Case (iii).

6RXWK$IULFDQ-RXUQDORI&KHPLFDO(QJLQHHULQJ²
Fig. 7. Water content in the dry product gas and water dew point at different
regenerator overhead recycle ratios for DRIZO Case (iii).
into the lowest TEG loss rate (Figs. 6 and 7). This is since more TEG are
recycled back into the dehydration system instead of released into the
atmosphere as in the stripping gas dehydration processes in our pre-
vious work (Kong et al., 2018c). This subsequently leads to a higher
purity on the regenerated TEG as reflected in Fig. 6 for a regenerator
overhead recycle ratio of 1. In general, an increase in the regenerator
overhead recycle ratio raises the purity of the regenerated TEG and
reduces the TEG loss rate.
The water content in the dry product gas at different regenerator
overhead recycle ratio is presented in Fig. 7. Larger extent of water
removal or equivalently, the drier product gas is achieved at the higher
regenerator overhead recycle ratio. For all simulated recycle ratios, the
water content in the dry product gas lies well below 7 lb MMSCF−1,
which is the upper safety limit for the allowable water content in pi-
pelines for most countries. However, a recycle ratio of 1 is needed if the
dry product gas is to be transported in colder climate places like Alaska,
whose pipeline specification lies in the range of 1–2 lb MMSCF−1. Fig. 7
also displays an analogous representation of water content in terms of
water dew point on the right side of the y-axis. Reducing water content
in the dry product gas clearly leads to water dew point depression. Such
proportional relationship between water dew point depression and
water content in natural gas is a well-known fact, which is consistent
with the results reported elsewhere (Arubi and Duru, 2008; Hernandez-
valencia et al., 1992).
The data shown in Figs. 6 and 7 essentially reveal that a complete
combination between the regenerator overhead and flash vapour (i.e.,
regenerator overhead recycle ratio of 1) provides the best dehydration
performance.
Table 3 shows the result comparison between our best DRIZO
configuration (Case (iii)) against the other dehydration processes stu-
died in our previous work (Kong et al., 2018c). Here, we only compare
Case (iii) with the previous work since Case (iii) is established here as
the best DRIZO configuration. Prior to the comparison, note that both
stripping gas dehydration processes in our previous work can achieve a
water dew point specification of −25 °C, which is the maximum water
dew point set by the Malaysian local authority. Our DRIZO process Case
(iii) in the present work however can only achieve a maximum water
dew point of −20 °C. As mentioned earlier, this is attributed to the
limited amount of stripping gas flowrate available in the present work,
which comes from the regenerator overhead and the flash vapour
stream. In our previous work, much larger amount of stripping gas is
available since the stripping gas comes either from the dry product gas
(sale gas) or from externally injected nitrogen gas. For fair comparison,
we have set the water dew point in the present work to be −20 °C for
the all the dehydration processes (Table 3).
The DRIZO process Case (iii) provides a higher purity on the re-
generated TEG relative to the other dehydration processes studied in
Z.Y. Kong, et al. 6RXWK$IULFDQ-RXUQDORI&KHPLFDO(QJLQHHULQJ²

Table 3
Result comparison between Case (iii) and the other stripping gas dehydration processes.
Parameters Conventional Stripping gas dehydration processes DRIZO process Case (iii)

Dry product gas Nitrogen gas

Lean TEG purity, wt. % 98.73 99.71 99.68 99.77

TEG loss rate, kg hr−1 0.26 0.14 0.13 0.03
VOC emissions, ton yr−1 0.071 0.044 0.002 0.000011
Sale gas water content, lb MMSCF−1' 3.92 1.72 1.72 1.72
Sale gas water dew point, °C −6.55 −20.02 −20.02 −20.02
Sale gas HHV, kJ kmol−1 883,655 890,480 890,472 890,485

our previous work (Table 3) (Kong et al., 2018c). A higher purity on the
regenerated TEG generally translates to a lower water content in the
dry product gas and subsequently leads to a lower water dew point in
the dry product gas. In addition, DRIZO process also provides a lower
TEG loss rate since most of the regenerator overhead and the flash
vapour that are recycled back to the dehydration system are used as the
stripping gas. Most importantly, DRIZO process generates the lowest
VOC emission among all the considered dehydration processes. All
these aforementioned findings are in agreement with the previous re-
ports (Eldemerdash and Kamarudin, 2016; Jokar et al., 2014; Saidi
et al., 2014).
Other than that, results shown in Table 3 also reveal that DRIZO
process Case (iii) can provide a higher HHV for the dry product gas in
comparison to the other dehydration processes. As anticipated, a drier
product gas translates to a higher HHV, which is in agreement with our
previous finding (Kong et al., 2018c). We had validated the HHV of our
simulation works against the literature results (Kidnay et al., 2011) and
obtained an average percentage error of less than 3%, which reflects
our results’ accuracy.
4.2. Economic analysis
This section features the economic analysis of the DRIZO process
Case (iii) and compares it against other dehydration processes from our
previous work (Kong et al., 2018c). The economic assessments are
performed in terms of net profit (i.e., the difference between the gross
profit and the total cost of production (TCOP)), following the identical
framework we developed in our previous work (Kong et al., 2018c).
Table 4 shows the annual gross profit that was obtained from dif-
ferent dehydration processes. The highest annual gross profit is gener-
ated from DRIZO process Case (iii) in our present work. This is because
the DRIZO process Case (iii) generates the highest HHV among all de-
hydration processes and the gross profit is calculated using HHV. In
addition, DRIZO process relies on the regenerator overhead and the
flash vapour as the stripping gas rather than consuming a portion of dry
product gas as the stripping gas. As a result, no profit is lost from the
consumption of the dry product gas. The stripping gas process using
nitrogen gas also creates identical annual gross profit relative to the
DRIZO process, albeit to a slightly lower extent. This is attributed to the
difference in HHV of the dry product gas (Table 2).
Table 4
Economic analysis between the dehydration processes.
Parameters Conventional Stripping gas dehydration DRIZO process
processes Case (iii)
Dry product Nitrogen gas
gas
Gross profit ($ 32,359,924 32,502,219 32,608,042 32,608,218
yr−1)
TCOP ($ yr−1) 3,220,213 3,256,000 3,804,381 3,949,685
Net profit ($ 29,139,711 29,246,219 28,803,661 28,658,533
yr−1)
The total cost of production (TCOP) that takes into account the sum
of the annual capital cost (ACC) and the cost of production (COP) are
presented in Table 4. Appendix A in Supplementary Materials provides
more details on the calculations for the TCOP. Conventional dehydra-
tion process generates the lowest TCOP of about $3,220,213 per annum
relative to the other dehydration processes (Table 4). The DRIZO pro-
cess Case (iii), on the other hand, provides the highest TCOP of about
$3,949,685 per annum. This is mainly due to the high fixed cost of
production (FCOP) that is highly dependent on the fixed capital in-
vestment (FCI). It was revealed from Table A2 that the FCI for the
DRIZO process is higher than the other dehydration processes by ap-
proximately 17%. Other than the FCOP, it is worth noting that the
variable cost of production (VCOP) for DRIZO process Case (iii) is also
very high mainly because of the sharp increase in the electricity con-
sumption. For all considered dehydration processes, the ACC is about
12% of the TCOP, which is common for chemical processes as com-
mented by Towler and Sinnott (2008).
The net profit comparison for all the dehydration processes are also
displayed in Table 4. Our economic analysis revealed that the stripping
gas dehydration process using sale gas provides the highest net profit
margin among all the studied dehydration processes. This is mainly due
to lower TCOP where the TCOP difference is about $500,000 to
$600,000 lower than the stripping gas dehydration process using ni-
trogen gas and DRIZO process Case (iii). Obviously, the difference in
gross profit margin for the stripping gas dehydration process using sale
gas relative to the stripping gas dehydration process using nitrogen gas
and DRIZO process Case (iii) is about $100,000 only, which is not en-
ough to compensate the difference in TCOP.
As a result, our techno-economic analysis concludes that the strip-
ping gas dehydration process that consumes a portion of dry product
gas is more techno-economically feasible in comparison to the other
dehydration processes. It can achieve the desired water dew point
specification while generating the highest gross profit margin relative
to the conventional dehydration process, stripping gas dehydration
process using nitrogen gas, and DRIZO process Case (iii).
5. Conclusion
Our present work evaluates the techno-economic performance of
three different DRIZO process configurations for natural gas dehydra-
tion; Case (i) – recycling of the regenerator overhead, Case (ii) – re-
cycling of the flash vapour, and Case (iii) – recycling of both the flash
vapour and the regenerator overhead into the dehydration system.
Among all three configurations, Case (iii) provides the best dehydration
process performance. Relative to our previous conventional dehydra-
tion process and the other two stripping gas (sale gas and nitrogen)
dehydration processes, Case (iii) generates the highest purity on the
regenerated TEG; leading to a lower water content in the dry product
gas. Case (iii) further provides the lowest TEG loss rate and VOC
emission while generates the highest HHV of the dry product gas. No
profit is lost in Case (iii) since no sale gas is consumed as the stripping
gas. As a result, Case (iii) generates the highest gross profit margin.
Such advantage however is traded-off by a higher capital expenditure.


Z.Y. Kong, et al.
Taking into consideration the gross profit margin and the TCOP, our
techno-economic analysis reveals that the DRIZO process is not eco-
nomically feasible mainly because of the high capital expenditure re-
quired for additional equipment investment and its high electricity cost.
The difference in gross profit margin for DRIZO process relative to other
cases is only about $100,000 per annum, which is not enough to cover
the difference in high TCOP of about $500,000 to $600,000. Our
techno-economic analysis suggests the use of stripping gas dehydration
process that consumes a portion of dry product gas because it can
achieve the desired water dew point specification while subsequently
generating the highest gross profit margin.
Declaration of competing interest
Please check the following as appropriate:
All authors have participated in (a) conception and design, or
analysis and interpretation of the data; (b) drafting the article or re-
vising it critically for important intellectual content; and (c) approval of
the final version.
This manuscript has not been submitted to, nor is under review at,
another journal or other publishing venue.
The authors have no affiliation with any organization with a direct
or indirect financial interest in the subject matter discussed in the
manuscript.
Acknowledgements
Zong Yang Kong gratefully acknowledges Full Fee-Waiver
Studentship provided by Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak
Campus.
Supplementary Materials
Supplementary data to this article, which contains Appendix A that
presents steps for cost estimation and Appendix B that presents wet gas
composition and operating condition can be found online at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.sajce.2019.11.001.
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Supplementary Materials
Appendix A – Steps involved for cost estimation

Table A1 shows the fixed capital cost (FCC) comparison for the DRIZO process case (iii) and the
other dehydration processes from our previous work (Kong et al., 2018c). It is worth mentioning
that the fixed capital cost will remained the same for the dehydration processes from our previous
work since there are no changes to the main equipment. For the DRIZO process Case (iii) in the
present study, four additional equipment were included in the FCC calculation such as a cooler,
three phase separator, centrifugal pump and a heater. These FCC are converted to annualised
capital cost (ACC) based on 20 years of plant life with an interest rate of 15%.
Table A2 revealed the overall fixed capital investment (FCI) for all the dehydration
processes which were calculated following the exact methodology as our previous work (Kong et
al., 2018c). The FCI here were estimated based on Chemical Engineering Plant Cost Index of 2017
following our previous work in order to demonstrate a fair comparison. From Table A2, it was
observed that the FCI for the DRIZO process is the higher than the other dehydration processes by
approximately 17%. Such incremental was attributed to the additional equipment required by the
DRIZO proces

1
Table A1. Fixed capital cost comparison between the three dehydration processes.
Equipment Type Conventional dehydration Stripping gas dehydration Stripping gas dehydration DRIZO process Case (iii)
process process using sale gas process using nitrogen
Equipment Fixed capital Equipment Fixed capital Equipment Fixed capital Equipment Fixed capital
cost Ce, $ cost C, $ cost Ce, $ cost C, $ cost Ce, $ cost C, $ cost Ce, $ cost C, $
Absorber 214,429 857,717 214,429 857,717 214,429 857,717 214,429 857,717
Regenerator 13,330 53,320 13,330 53,320 13,330 53,320 13,330 53,320
Flash separator 8,999 35,996 8,999 35,996 8,999 35,996 8,999 35,996
Lean/Rich heat 14,144 49,504 14,144 49,504 14,144 49,504 14,144 49,504
exchanger
Lean/Dry gas heat 14,830 51,905 14,825 51,905 14,825 51,905 14,825 51,905
exchanger
Reboiler 19,311 67,589 19,279 67,589 19,279 67,589 19,279 67,589
Condenser 2,080 7,280 2,080 7,280 2,080 7,280 2,080 7,280
Mixer 1,042 2,605 1,042 2,605 1,042 2,605 1,042 2,605
Pump with motor 8,605 30,190 8,605 30,190 8,605 30,190 8,605 30,190
Splitter - - 2,169 5,423 - - - -
Heater - - 2,080 7,280 - - - -
Heat Exchanger - - - - - - 15,860 55,510
Cooler - - - - - - 9,935 39,741
Three phase separator - - - - - - 30,146 84,658
Compressor with - - - - - - 3,717
motor
Heater - - - - - - 13,343 46,701.2
Total 1,156,105 1,168,808 1,156,105 1,395,418

2
Table A2. The fixed capital investment (FCI) for the three dehydration processes.
Cost, $ Conventional Stripping gas dehydration Stripping gas dehydration DRIZO process
dehydration process process using sale gas process using nitrogen Case (iii)
Inside battery limit 1,156,105 1,168,808 1,156,105 1,395,418
investment (ISBL)
Off-site cost 346,831 350,642 346,831 418,625
(OSBL)
Engineering Cost 450,881 455,835 450,881 544,213
Contingency Cost 150,294 151,945 150,294 181,404
FCI (2006 prices) 2,104,111 2,127,230 2,104,111 2,539,661
FCI (2017 prices) 2,494,950 2,522,364 2,494,950 3,011,404

3
Table A3 presents the estimated annual cost of production (COP) for the DRIZO process in our
current work and compared it against the other dehydration processes in our previous study. The
COP were calculated following the identical methodology presented in our previous work (Kong
et al., 2018c). However, it is worth noting that the COP for the two stripping gas dehydration
processes is different from our previous work, due to some adjustment made to the TEG and
stripping gas flowrate. As mentioned earlier, we have adjusted our stripping gas flowrate of our
previous study so that we could achieved similar water dew point of -20oC as the DRIZO process
in the present study (Table 3 in Manuscript). Therefore, the amount of stripping gas directly
affects the purity of regenerated TEG, which in turn, affects the amount of TEG flowrate required
in the dehydration system. This leads to a minor difference in the TEG cost for the two stripping
gas dehydration process and subsequently leads to different COP for the two dehydration processes
between our present study and previous study.
From Table A3, it was demonstrated that the DRIZO process has the lowest variable cost
of production (VCOP). This was attributed to the high purity on regenerated TEG in the DRIZO
process and subsequently reduce the amount of TEG flowrate needed in the dehydration system.
Such advantages however was traded off at an expense of high fixed cost of production (FCOP)
because most of the FCOP are highly dependent on the FCI and it was revealed earlier in Table
A2 that the FCI for the DRIZO process is the higher than the other dehydration processes by
approximately 17%. Overall, the stripping gas dehydration process that consumes nitrogen has the
highest annual COP mainly because the nitrogen stripping gas comes from external injection.

4
Table A3. Annual cost of production (COP) estimation for the three dehydration processes.
Cost, $ Conventional Stripping gas dehydration Stripping gas dehydration DRIZO Process
dehydration process process using sale gas process using nitrogen Case (iii)
Variable cost of production (VCOP)
TEG cost (including TEG loss) 19,053 5552 5,657 3,507
Steam cost 18,806 18,778 18,778 18,778
Electrical cost 800,000 844,000 864,000 1,440,000
Miscellaneous cost 17,099 16,823 27,478 16,781
Nitrogen cost - - 522,000 -
Annual VCOP 854,958 885,153 1,437,913 1,479,067
Fixed cost of production (FCOP)
Operating labour (OL) 600,000 600,000 600,000 600,000
Supervision (S) 150,000 150,000 150,000 150,000
Direct salary overhead (DSO) 375,000 375,000 375,000 375,000
Maintenance (M) 34,683 35,064 35,064 41,863
Property taxes and insurance 23,122 23,376 23,376 27,908
Rent of land 15,029 15,195 15,195 18,140
General plant overhead 753,794 754,042 754,042 75,8461
Environmental charges 15,029 15,194 15,195 18,140
Annual FCOP 1,966,658 1,967,871 1,967,871 1,989,512
Cost of production (COP) 2,821,616 2,853,024 3,405,784 3,468,579

5
Figure A1. Flowsheet for the DRIZO process Case (i): recycling the regenerator overhead.

Name Wet gas to abs Sale gas Lean_TEG_rcy Dry overhead vap
Temperature (oC) 29.6 34.8 34.0 12.1
Pressure (kPa) 4100.0 4070.0 4080.0 120.0
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 31327.0 31293.0 1078.0 16.1

6
Figure A2. Flowsheet for the DRIZO process Case (ii): recycling the flash vapour.

Name Wet gas to abs Sale gas Lean_TEG_rcy

Temperature (oC) 29.0 34.8 34.0
Pressure (kPa) 4100.0 4070.0 4080.0
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 31327.0 312930.0 1070.0

7
Figure A3. Flowsheet for the DRIZO process Case (iii): recycling the regenerator overhead and flash vapour.

Name Wet gas to abs Sale gas Lean_TEG_rcy Dry overhead vap split
Temperature (oC) 29.6 35.2 34.0 14.0
Pressure (kPa) 4100.0 4070.0 4080.0 120.00
Mass flow (kg hr-1) 31327.0 31290.0 1165.0 336.9

8
Appendix B – Wet gas composition and operating condition of the dehydration plant

Table B1. Feed gas composition (Reproduced from (Kong et al., 2018c)).
Components Mass fraction (%)
Carbon dioxide 0.70
Nitrogen 1.60
Oxygen 0.02
Methane 94.90
Ethane 2.50
Propane 0.20
i-Butane 0.003
n-Butane 0.003
i-Pentane 0.001
n-Pentane 0.001
n-Hexane 0.001

9
Table B2. Input parameters to the absorber and the regenerator (Reproduced from (Kong et
al., 2018c)).
Parameter Value
General
Property package Peng-Robinson (PR)
Wet gas flowrate (Nm3 day-1) 1,000,000
Absorber
Top pressure 4080 kPa
Total pressure drop 8 kPa
Number of stages 14
Overall stage efficiency 0.3
Tray size utility Bubble cap
Number of flow paths 2
Tray spacing 0.6096 m
Max. flooding 85%
Sieve tray flooding method Minimum Csb
Regenerator
Condenser Full reflux
Top pressure 102 kPa
Total pressure drop 18 kPa
Feed temperature 100 oC
Number of stages 10
Reflux ratio 0.01
Reboiler temperature 200
Packing column utility:
Raschig rings 1/16 in. wall, CSteel, 1 & 1/2 in.
Packing column sections Section 1: stage 1 to stage 3
Section 2: stage 4 to stage 6
Section 3: stage 7 to stage 10
HETP 0.3048 m
Section spacing 0.4 m
Max. flooding 70%
Packing correlation Robins

10
Chapter 6. Conclusion and Recommendations

6.1 Conclusion
This thesis addresses the limitations of the previous studies where marginal analysis (i.e., net profit
assessment) has not been considered in any of the existing techno-economic analysis on natural
gas dehydration process via absorption using TEG. Here, a novel techno-economic framework was
developed to assess and compare the different dehydration processes with the consideration of net
profit assessment. The performances of the conventional dehydration process, the stripping gas
dehydration processes, and the DRIZO dehydration process were evaluated from technical and
economical perspective. The most economic dehydration process was selected that can achieve the
maximum water dew point of –25 oC as stipulated by the local Malaysian authority for pipeline-
transported natural gas. Although the water dew point requirement specified in this thesis was set
based on Malaysian requirement, the techno-economic framework can also be applied to evaluate
the water dew point requirement set by other regulatory authority (e.g., Europe).

The first contribution of this thesis is the parametric study of the conventional dehydration process
via absorption using TEG. From the parametric study, an optimum TEG flowrate of 1241 kg hr -1
was obtained, which provides the minimum water content of 5.08 lb MMSCF-1 in the dry product
gas with the total TEG loss rate and the total BTEX emissions of about 3.14 ton yr-1 and 509 ton
yr-1, respectively. Using this optimum TEG flowrate, several different recycling configurations
applied to the conventional dehydration process were investigated that aims to maximise the
recovery of the wet gas loss and the TEG loss rate while minimising the BTEX emission. However,
it was found that applying all these three recycling configurations does not contribute towards
significant process performance improvement while imposing both additional capital and
operational costs. In all three cases, the marginal reduction in the total BTEX emission is always
traded-off by the marginal increase in the water content in the dry product gas and vice versa. In
addition, the total TEG loss rate is consistently reduced by up to 0.4% only relative to the base
case, in all the three recycling configuration cases, which does not represent a significant reduction.
Therefore, the performance of the conventional dehydration process can only be optimised using
the optimum TEG flowrate found, which provides a balance between water content in dry product
gas, BTEX emission, and TEG loss rate.

99
The second contribution is the development of the novel techno-economic framework to examine
the performance of the different dehydration processes with consideration of net profit margin.
The techno-economic analyses were conducted for the conventional dehydration process, the
stripping gas dehydration process that consumes a portion of sale gas as stripping gas, and the
stripping gas dehydration process that relies on the externally injected nitrogen gas as stripping
gas. It was demonstrated that all the three dehydration processes can easily meet the minimum
water dew point specification of +5 oC as specified by the local authority for pipeline transported
natural gas in Malaysia. Nevertheless, the maximum water dew point specification of –25 oC can
only be achieved by using stripping gas dehydration process that consumes more than 260 Nm3
hr-1 of sale gas or 435 Nm3 hr-1 of nitrogen gas. The techno-economic analysis further indicated
that the stripping gas dehydration process that consumes 260 Nm3 hr-1 sale gas as stripping gas
gives the highest annual net profit margin of about $29 million. Such profit margin is higher by
about $1.6 million and $300,000 relative to the stripping gas dehydration process using nitrogen
and the conventional dehydration process, respectively. In summary, it was found that the stripping
gas dehydration process that consumes a portion of sale gas can provide a higher net profit margin
while able to meet the maximum water dew point specification relative to the conventional
dehydration process and the stripping gas dehydration process using external injected nitrogen gas.

The last contribution from this thesis is the extension of the developed techno-economic
framework to examine the performance of the stripping gas dehydration process using VOC gases
as stripping gas (i.e., DRIZO process). Three different DRIZO configurations were first evaluated,
i.e., using regenerator overhead, using flash vapour, and using both regenerator overhead and flash
vapour, as stripping gas. Among all three configurations, using both regenerator overhead and
flash vapour as stripping gas provides the best dehydration process performance. Then, the best
DRIZO process was compared against conventional dehydration process and the stripping gas
dehydration processes that consume sale gas and nitrogen gas as stripping gas. The techno-
economic analyses indicated that DRIZO process provides the highest purity on regenerated TEG
up to 99.77% while maximising the TEG recovery rate with minimum VOC emission. Further,
there is no profit loss associated to the DRIZO process since it does not consume a portion of sale
gas as stripping gas. However, after taking into consideration the gross profit margin and the TCOP,

100
the techno-economic analysis reveals that the DRIZO process is not economically feasible mainly
because of the high capital expenditure required for additional equipment investment and its high
electricity cost. The difference in gross profit margin for DRIZO process in comparison to other
cases is only about $100,000 per annum, which is not enough to cover the difference in high TCOP
of about $500,000 to $600,000. Thus, the use of stripping gas dehydration process using a portion
of sale gas is recommended since it provides a higher net profit margin relative to the DRIZO
process.

In conclusion, a novel techno-economic framework was developed in this thesis to select the best
natural gas dehydration process via absorption using TEG. The conventional dehydration process
and the stripping gas dehydration processes using various stripping gases (e.g., sale gas, externally
injected nitrogen gas, and VOC gases (DRIZO)) were analysed. My study revealed that the
stripping gas dehydration process that consumes a portion of dry product gas is superior relative
to other dehydration processes because it can achieve the desired water dew point specification
while generating the highest gross profit margin. In the event where it is not possible to revamp
the conventional dehydration plant onto the enhanced dehydration process due to various
limitations (e.g., land spacing constraint), such conventional plant may consider the technique
employed in the parametric study to improve the economics and performance of their dehydration
plant.

The specific contributions to knowledge from this thesis are listed as follows:
x Overview of the existing literature studies on natural gas dehydration process via
absorption using TEG, the alternative methods available to enhance TEG regeneration
performance, their working mechanisms, process flow diagrams, advantages, drawbacks,
current statuses, existing gaps, and future directions.
x Parametric study to obtain optimum TEG flowrate that considers the water content in the
dry product gas, TEG loss rate, and BTEX emission on the conventional dehydration
process. Such optimum TEG flowrate improves the overall performance for the
conventional dehydration process, especially in lowering down the BTEX emission to
reduce environmental impact.
x Showed that the different recycling configurations applied to the conventional dehydration

101
 process are unable to significantly minimise the TEG loss rate and the BTEX emission.
x Development of a novel techno-economic framework to evaluate the net profit generated
by different dehydration processes.
x Techno-economic analyses on conventional dehydration process, stripping gas dehydration
process using sale gas and nitrogen, and DRIZO process with the consideration of net profit,
which has never been considered in any of the existing studies.
x Demonstrated the importance of net profit as an important factor to be considered during
techno-economic analyses for enhanced natural gas dehydration processes.
x Investigation of the effects of three different DRIZO recycling configurations on the
performance of natural gas dehydration process.
x Concluded that the stripping gas dehydration process using the dry product gas generates
the highest net profit margin while meeting the desired water dew point specification.

Several limitations were identified for this thesis, which are outlined as follows:
x The optimum TEG flowrate determined in Chapter 2 that provides trade-off between water
content in the dry product gas, BTEX emission, and TEG loss rate was obtained graphically
by combining all three parameters in one graph at various TEG flowrate. The effect of
changes due to multiple parameters was not considered. Therefore, a better alternative
option would be to consider the effect of changes due to different parameters
simultaneously and address the problem from multi-objective optimisation perspective.
x The parametric study in Chapter 3 was carried out using specific range of manipulated
variable (i.e., TEG flowrate varies between 855 kg hr-1 to 1710 kg hr-1). Therefore, the
results are only reliable within the range of operating parameters considered. Further
simulation and result validation are required so that the results can be applied to a wider
range of applications.
x The cost model employed in the techno-economic analyses were fixed at specific value.
Fluctuation in market prices (i.e., fluctuation in natural gas price) that may affect the result
of the techno-economic analyses was not considered.
x The techno-economic analysis Part I was conducted at a fixed TEG flowrate while
manipulating the stripping gas flowrate. The trade-off between the consumption of TEG

102
 flowrate and stripping gas flowrate was not considered (i.e., whether it is more economical
to use more TEG flowrate and lower amount of sale gas).

6.2 Recommendations for Future Work

This thesis presented a novel techno-economic framework that accounts for net profit assessment
to select the best natural gas dehydration process via absorption using TEG. Several areas for
future work arisen from this thesis are as follows:

1. Extension of techno-economic framework to Stahl column process

The present novel techno-economic framework can be extended to evaluate the
performance of the natural gas dehydration process using Stahl column. My literature
review in Chapter 2 suggested that very little information is known for Stahl column and
further comparison is required between the Stahl column process and the conventional
stripping process, particularly from techno-economic aspects. Furthermore, my literature
survey also indicates that most of the existing studies on Stahl column only focuses on
using a portion of the dry product gas. The effect of injecting other stripping gases such as
the inert gas (e.g., nitrogen) or the volatile hydrocarbon gas (e.g., BTEX gases) into the
Stahl column remains unclear. To date, no existing studies has investigated the impact of
simultaneous injection of stripping gas into the reboiler of the regeneration column and the
Stahl column. Therefore, further techno-economic analysis is warranted on Stahl column
process to address these aforementioned gaps.

2. Perform Multi-Objective Optimisation to the natural gas dehydration plant

As discussed in my literature review in Chapter 2, there is a conflicting nature between
water content in the dry product gas, BTEX emission, and TEG loss rate, with increasing
TEG flowrate. Although this gap has been addressed by determining an optimum TEG
flowrate that provides the minimum water content in the dry product gas with least amount
of BTEX emission and TEG loss rate simultaneously, such optimum TEG flowrate was
obtained graphically through combining all three parameters in one graph with various
TEG flowrate. A better alternative option would be to address this as a multi-objective
optimisation problem. For instance, different objectives can be defined such as minimising

103
 the water content in the dry product gas, the BTEX emission, and the TEG loss rate. Several
constraints can also be added to the optimisation such as maintaining the reboiler
temperature below 204 oC and keeping the minimum purity of the regenerated TEG at
above 98.8%. In addition, maximising the net profit assessment that was not considered in
my parametric study in Chapter 3, can also be added into the objectives, which makes the
whole problem set becomes a more complex multi-objective optimisation problem. The
solution obtained from the multi-objective optimisation can resolve the trade-off between
different conflicting objectives more accurately.

3. Integration of heat exchanger network for the best dehydration process

Heat integration can additionally be performed on the best dehydration process after
techno-economic analysis to maximise the heat recovery between the processing units.
This is since the dehydration process contains multiple heat exchangers, coolers, and
heaters. Several different heat exchanger configurations have been reported in the existing
literature as covered in Chapter 2. However, it remains unclear which heat exchanger
configuration can further enhance the dehydration process performance and contribute
towards significant reduction in operating cost.

4. Techno-economic analyses on the advanced natural gas dehydration processes

My literature survey in Chapter 2 has indicated that several advanced technologies for
natural gas dehydration have recently emerged such as membrane and supersonic
technologies. These advanced technologies have numerous advantages over absorption
using TEG such as they require much lesser space and can be operated continuously
without the need for regeneration; making them suitable for unmanned operation (e.g., for
offshore applications). More essential is the fact that they are more environmentally
friendly and energy-efficient since they do not require any additional solvents and/or
chemicals. However, several drawbacks are also identified for these advanced technologies.
Membrane technology, for example, demonstrates very high methane loss rate, resulting
in lower amount of dry product gas becomes available for sale. This limitation restricts the
membrane ability to compete with the well-established TEG dehydration units. Although
tremendous efforts have been directed towards exploring the potential replacement of

104
 membrane over the conventional dehydration process in the recent years, there is no
detailed techno-economic analyses reported that compare these advanced technologies
with the conventional dehydration process, at the time this thesis was written. Therefore, a
detailed techno-economic analyses that compare the advanced and conventional
dehydration processes are warranted, especially those that take into consideration the net
profit assessment.
Other than targeting these relatively new technologies for dehydration application,
research focus can also be directed towards the conventional absorption dehydration
process using ionic liquids (abbreviated as ILs) as solvent. My literature survey has
indicated that ILs have become increasingly popular in the recent years for dehydration
applications given its distinguished physicochemical properties as discussed in Chapter 2.
Therefore, it may be interesting to conduct techno-economic analyses to further support
the ILs and to overturn the present market preference on the current well-established
conventional dehydration process using TEG.

In summary, several areas for future work stemming from this thesis have been outlined above.
Here, the first three recommendations cover the immediate future work, which can be completed
by the extension of this thesis. These recommendations aim to further improve the performance of
the natural gas dehydration process via absorption using TEG. The last recommendation, on the
other hand, focuses more on the major possible advancement arises from this thesis. Here,
emphasis is put on a wider range of applications where the techno-economic analyses can be
extended to different types of natural gas dehydration technologies such as membrane and
supersonic applications.

105
References
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Alcheikhhamdon, Y., Hoorfar, M., 2016. Natural gas quality enhancement: A review of the
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Ani, Z. Al, Gujarathi, A.M., Vakili-nezhaad, G.R., 2021. Simultaneous energy and environment-
based optimization and retrofit of TEG dehydration processௗ: An industrial case study.
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glycol (TEG). Pet. Coal 56, 407–417.
Bahadori, A., 2014. Natural gas processing. Elsevier. doi:10.1016/b978-0-08-099971-5.00009-x
Bahadori, A., Vuthaluru, H.B., Mokhatab, S., 2008. Analyzing solubility of acid gas and light
alkanes in triethylene glycol. J. Nat. Gas Chem. 17, 51–58. doi:10.1016/S1003-
9953(08)60025-0
Carroll, J., 2014. Dehydration of natural gas 175–195. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-800074-8.00006-5
Chebbi, R., Qasim, M., Jabbar, N.A., 2019. Optimization of triethylene glycol dehydration of
natural gas. Energy Reports 5, 723–732. doi:10.1016/j.egyr.2019.06.014
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Eldemerdash, U., Kamarudin, K., 2016. Assessment of new and improved solvent for pre-
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Gad, M.S., Elmawgoud, H.A., Aboul-Fotouh, T.M., El-Shafie, M.A., 2016. The economic
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Gong, J., Shi, B., Zhao, J., 2010. Natural gas hydrate shell model in gas-slurry pipeline flow. J.
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Hayhoe, K., Kheshgi, H.S., Jain, A.K., Wuebbles, D.J., 2002. Substitution of natural gas for coal:
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 climatic effects of utility sector emissions. Clim. Change 54, 107–139.
Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2018. Revamping existing glycol technologies in
natural gas dehydration to improve the purity and absorption efficiencyௗ: Available methods
and recent developments. J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 56, 486–503. doi:10.1016/j.jngse.2018.06.008
Li, W., Zhuang, Y., Zhang, L., Liu, L., Du, J., 2019. Economic evaluation and environmental
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Appendix. Signed Authorship Indication Forms

The Authorship Indication Forms are included for the following publications incorporated in
this thesis:

1. Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2018. Revamping existing glycol
technologies in natural gas dehydration to improve the purity and absorption efficiencyௗ:
Available methods and recent developments. J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 56, 486–503.
doi:10.1016/j.jngse.2018.06.008
2. Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2018. A parametric study of different
recycling configurations for the natural gas dehydration process via absorption using
triethylene glycol. Process Integr Optim Sustain. 1. doi:10.1007/s41660-018-0058-x
3. Kong, Z.Y., Ahmed, M., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2019. Development of a techno-economic
framework for natural gas dehydration via absorption using tri-ethylene glycolௗ: A
comparative study on conventional and stripping gas dehydration processes. J. Chem.
Technol. Biotechnol, 94, 955–963. doi:10.1002/jctb.5844
4. Kong, Z.Y., Wee, X.J.M., Ahmed, M., Yu, A., Liu, S., Sunarso, J., 2020, Development
of a techno-economic framework for natural gas dehydration via absorption using tri-
ethylene glycol: A comparative study between DRIZO and other dehydration processes.
S. Afr. J. Chem. Eng. 31, 17-24. doi:10.1016/j.sajce.2019.11.00

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 S wi n b ur n e R e s e ar c h

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m
F or P h D (i n cl u di n g a s s o ci at e d p a p e r s) c a n di d at e s

N OTE
T hi s A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n f or m i s a st at e m e nt d et aili n g t h e p er c e nt a g e of t h e c o ntri b uti o n of e a c h a ut h or i n e a c h a s s oci at e d
p a p er . T hi s f or m m u st b e si g n e d by e a c h c o- a ut h or a n d t h e Pri n ci p al C o or di n ati n g S u p er vi s or. T hi s f or m m u st b e a d d e d t o t h e
p u bli c ati o n of y o ur fi n al t h e si s a s a n a p p e n di x. Pl e a s e fill o ut a s e p ar at e f or m f or e a c h a s s o ci at e d p a p er t o b e i n cl u d e d i n y o ur
t h e si s.

D E C L A R A TI O N
W e h er e b y d e cl ar e o ur c o ntri b uti o n t o t h e p u bli c ati o n of t h e p a p er e ntitl e d:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________ __

Fir st A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of r e s p o n si biliti e s/r ol e o n pr oj ect:

S e c o n d A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

T hir d A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

F o urt h A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

Pri n ci p al C o or di n ati n g S u p ervi s or: N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

I n t h e c a s e of m or e t h a n f o ur a ut h or s pl e a s e att a c h a n ot h er s h e et wit h t h e n a m e s, si g n at ur e s a n d c o ntri b uti o n of t h e a ut h or s.

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m 1 of
 S wi n b ur n e R e s e ar c h

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m
F or P h D (i n cl u di n g a s s o ci at e d p a p e r s) c a n di d at e s

F A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of

A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m of
 S wi n b ur n e R e s e ar c h

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m
F or P h D (i n cl u di n g a s s o ci at e d p a p e r s) c a n di d at e s

N OTE
T hi s A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n f or m i s a st at e m e nt d et aili n g t h e p er c e nt a g e of t h e c o ntri b uti o n of e a c h a ut h or i n e a c h a s s oci at e d
p a p er . T hi s f or m m u st b e si g n e d by e a c h c o- a ut h or a n d t h e Pri n ci p al C o or di n ati n g S u p er vi s or. T hi s f or m m u st b e a d d e d t o t h e
p u bli c ati o n of y o ur fi n al t h e si s a s a n a p p e n di x. Pl e a s e fill o ut a s e p ar at e f or m f or e a c h a s s o ci at e d p a p er t o b e i n cl u d e d i n y o ur
t h e si s.

D E C L A R A TI O N
W e h er e b y d e cl ar e o ur c o ntri b uti o n t o t h e p u bli c ati o n of t h e p a p er e ntitl e d:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________ __

Fir st A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of r e s p o n si biliti e s/r ol e o n pr oj ect:

S e c o n d A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

T hir d A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

F o urt h A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

Pri n ci p al C o or di n ati n g S u p ervi s or: N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

I n t h e c a s e of m or e t h a n f o ur a ut h or s pl e a s e att a c h a n ot h er s h e et wit h t h e n a m e s, si g n at ur e s a n d c o ntri b uti o n of t h e a ut h or s.

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m 1 of
 S wi n b ur n e R e s e ar c h

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m
F or P h D (i n cl u di n g a s s o ci at e d p a p e r s) c a n di d at e s

F A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of

A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m of
 S wi n b ur n e R e s e ar c h

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m
F or P h D (i n cl u di n g a s s o ci at e d p a p e r s) c a n di d at e s

N OTE
T hi s A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n f or m i s a st at e m e nt d et aili n g t h e p er c e nt a g e of t h e c o ntri b uti o n of e a c h a ut h or i n e a c h a s s oci at e d
p a p er . T hi s f or m m u st b e si g n e d by e a c h c o- a ut h or a n d t h e Pri n ci p al C o or di n ati n g S u p er vi s or. T hi s f or m m u st b e a d d e d t o t h e
p u bli c ati o n of y o ur fi n al t h e si s a s a n a p p e n di x. Pl e a s e fill o ut a s e p ar at e f or m f or e a c h a s s o ci at e d p a p er t o b e i n cl u d e d i n y o ur
t h e si s.

D E C L A R A TI O N
W e h er e b y d e cl ar e o ur c o ntri b uti o n t o t h e p u bli c ati o n of t h e p a p er e ntitl e d:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________ __

Fir st A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of r e s p o n si biliti e s/r ol e o n pr oj ect:

S e c o n d A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

T hir d A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

F o urt h A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

Pri n ci p al C o or di n ati n g S u p ervi s or: N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

I n t h e c a s e of m or e t h a n f o ur a ut h or s pl e a s e att a c h a n ot h er s h e et wit h t h e n a m e s, si g n at ur e s a n d c o ntri b uti o n of t h e a ut h or s.

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m 1 of
 S wi n b ur n e R e s e ar c h

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m
F or P h D (i n cl u di n g a s s o ci at e d p a p e r s) c a n di d at e s

F A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of

A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m of
 S wi n b ur n e R e s e ar c h

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m
F or P h D (i n cl u di n g a s s o ci at e d p a p e r s) c a n di d at e s

N OTE
T hi s A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n f or m i s a st at e m e nt d et aili n g t h e p er c e nt a g e of t h e c o ntri b uti o n of e a c h a ut h or i n e a c h a s s oci at e d
p a p er . T hi s f or m m u st b e si g n e d by e a c h c o- a ut h or a n d t h e Pri n ci p al C o or di n ati n g S u p er vi s or. T hi s f or m m u st b e a d d e d t o t h e
p u bli c ati o n of y o ur fi n al t h e si s a s a n a p p e n di x. Pl e a s e fill o ut a s e p ar at e f or m f or e a c h a s s o ci at e d p a p er t o b e i n cl u d e d i n y o ur
t h e si s.

D E C L A R A TI O N
W e h er e b y d e cl ar e o ur c o ntri b uti o n t o t h e p u bli c ati o n of t h e p a p er e ntitl e d:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________ __

Fir st A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of r e s p o n si biliti e s/r ol e o n pr oj ect:

S e c o n d A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

T hir d A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

F o urt h A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

Pri n ci p al C o or di n ati n g S u p ervi s or: N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

I n t h e c a s e of m or e t h a n f o ur a ut h or s pl e a s e att a c h a n ot h er s h e et wit h t h e n a m e s, si g n at ur e s a n d c o ntri b uti o n of t h e a ut h or s.

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m 1 of
 S wi n b ur n e R e s e ar c h

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m
F or P h D (i n cl u di n g a s s o ci at e d p a p e r s) c a n di d at e s

F A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of

A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

A ut h or

N a m e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Si g n at ur e: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

P er c e nt a g e of c o ntri b uti o n: _ _ _ _ % D at e: _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _

Bri ef d es cri pti o n of :

A ut h or s hi p I n di c ati o n F or m of