NATURAL GAS ENGINEERING -UNIT 5

DESSICANT DEHYDRATION

AKSHAYA R
2021311003
 WHY DEHYDRATION?

• Dehydration unit is to remove water from natural gas and natural gas liquids.
• When produced from a reservoir, natural gas usually contains a large amount of water and is typically
completely saturated or at the water dew point.
• This water can cause several problems for downstream processes and equipment. At low temperatures the
water can either freeze in piping or, as is more commonly the case, form hydrates with CO2 and
hydrocarbons (mainly methane hydrates).
• Depending on composition, these hydrates can form at relatively high temperatures plugging equipment
and piping.

Note:Hydrates are solid, crystalline compounds formed from water and hydrocarbon molecules such as methane and
ethane. They are very much like common ice in both their appearance and their properties
 TYPES OF DESSICANT

• There are different techniques employed for dehydrating natural gas, but only two types of dehydration
techniques are commonly in current use: absorption by liquid desiccants and adsorption by solid desiccants.
• Absorption by liquid dessicants-Glycol Dehydration
• Absorption by solid dessicants-Solid Dehydration
 SOLID DESSICANT DEHYDRATION

• Solid desiccant dehydration is a process that removes water vapor from a gas stream.
• Typical desiccants include activated alumina, silica gel, and molecular sieve.Wet natural gas is passed through
these towers from top to bottom.
• As the wet gas passes around the particles of desiccant material, water is retained on the surface of these desiccant
particles.
• Passing through the entire dessicant bed, almost all of the water is adsorbed onto the desiccant material, leaving the
dry gas to exit the bottom of the tower.
• These types of dehydration systems are best suited for large volumes of gas under very high pressure .
• To “regenerate” the desiccant, a high-temperature heater is used to heat gas to a very high temperature.
• Passing this heated gas through a saturated desiccant bed vaporizes the water in the desiccant tower, leaving it dry
and allowing for further natural gas dehydration.
During normal operation in the drying (adsorbing) cycle, three separate zones exist in
the bed:

Equilibrium zone
• In the equilibrium zone, the desiccant is saturated with water; it has reached its
equilibrium water capacity based on inlet gas conditions and has no further capacity
to adsorb water.

Mass transfer zone (MTZ)

• Virtually all of the mass transfer takes place in the MTZ, a concentration gradient
exists across the MTZ.

Active zone
• In the active zone the desiccant has its full capacity for water vapor removal and
contains only that amount of residual water left from the regeneration cycle. When
the leading edge of the MTZ reaches the end of the bed, breakthrough occurs
 LIQUID DESSICANT DEHYDRATION

• Dehydration with glycols is a regenerative absorption process.

• Generally, it includes a high-pressure absorption column (contactor) where gas at high pressure contacts, in countercurrent,
with a stream of lean glycol.
• After absorbing the water contained in the gas, the lean glycol becomes rich glycol—i.e., water-diluted glycol to be sent to
the regeneration unit.
• The contacting internals may be trays, random packing or structured packing.
• As the regeneration step is carried out at near-atmospheric pressure, the high-pressure rich glycol withdrawn from the
contactor bottom is let down through a level control valve .
• The resultant two-phase flow is then routed to the glycol flash drum, where the absorbed hydrocarbons and part of the inert
gas are separated from the rich glycol.
• After filtration and pre-heating, the rich glycol is sent to the still column for water-glycol separation.
 PHYSICAL SOLVENTS

• Physical solvents are generally inert, non-reactive substances that rely on physical interactions, such as absorption and
adsorption, to remove impurities from a gas or liquid stream.
• They do not undergo chemical reactions with the impurities but rather use physical forces to capture and separate them
from the feed stream.
• Common physical solvents include liquids like methanol, ethanol, and glycols, which can absorb or adsorb impurities
like carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, or water vapor.
• Physical solvents are often used for the removal of acidic gases and moisture from natural gas or other gas streams.
 CHEMICAL SOLVENTS

• Chemical solvents, are reactive substances that chemically react with the impurities in the feed stream to
form new compounds, which are then separated from the desired product.
• These solvents undergo chemical reactions with the impurities to transform them into less harmful or
more easily separable substances.
• Examples of chemical solvents include amine solutions (e.g., monoethanolamine, diethanolamine) used
for the removal of acidic gases like carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide in natural gas processing.
• Chemical solvents are often used for more specific and complex purification processes where chemical
reactions are necessary to achieve the desired results.