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Gas drying using solid sorbents

The basic sorbents used for hydrocarbon gas drying are silica gels and molecular sieves.

2.1. Silica gels

The advantages of silicagels: low regeneration temperature, i.e. low power consumption as compared with other mineral sorbents (aluminium oxide, zeolites), and relatively low costs. KSM finely porous silicagel is very efficiently used for gas drying in industrial units. It has the largest adsorption capacity by contrast to another silicagel grades, provides lower drying degree, has higher mechanical resistance against friction and crushing. However, it quickly granulates in the presence of condensed moisture in the gas. For this reason a layer of finely porous silicagel is usually protected by a layer of adsorbent which is inert to condensate moisture. When selecting a sorbent and its regeneration mode, the presence in gas of hydrocarbons that are heavier than butane shall be taken into account. Heavy hydrocarbons 5 and higher are retained by silicagel and removed incompletely during regeneration. It must be understood that heating of silicagel to the temperatures over 220 results in destructive changes of silicagel surface thus lowering its adsorption capacity. Heating above 250 leads to drop of silicagel activity. In the initial loading period silicagel has high activity about 15-20% max., which lowers down to 7% max during operation,

2.2. Zeolites
Synthetic zeolites are the most expensive adsorbents, but their application in the drying unit considerably lowers operating costs. Zeolites provide very low dew point at high adsorption ability and they are stable if contacting with condensed moisture. Unique structure of synthetic zeolites together with gas drying enables to remove heavy hydrocarbons from gas. Zeolites are more stable at low temperatures compared to silicagel. Experience on adsorbents use in conditions of north fields as well as laboratory tests have shown that silicagel is being cracked at multiple low temperature exposure: watered silicagel is destroyed to 15-20%, and regenerated one to 5-7%; as for zeolite, it is not visually changed and do not reduce its service properties. Actually, schemes comprising 3 and 2 gas drying adsorbers are capable to be implemented depending on specific quantity of recovered components, gas drying depth, characteristics of the used equipment and adsorbent properties.
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