International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET)

Volume 2 Issue 7 pp 440-444 October 2013 www.ijsret.org ISSN 2278 – 0882

The optimal engineering design for natural gas dehydration

process by TEG
Associate professor Dr. Fadi Z. Hanna
Chemical Engineering Department
Koya University, Kurdistan Region-Iraq

Mr. RibwarKermanjAbdulrahman
Chemical Engineering Department
Koya University, Kurdistan Region-Iraq

Abstract
Natural gas may consider one of the most popular fossil fuel in recent era. Natural gas has several
advantages over other fossil fuel types for instance, environmental friendly, high heating value &
cheap price. Natural gas is producesfrom underground reservoirs so it couldcontentsseveral of
non-hydrocarbon components for example, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen and water vapor. These
impurities are undesirable compounds and cause several technical problems for instance,
corrosion and environment pollution. Therefore, these components should be reduce or removed
from natural gas stream. Indeed, water vapor in natural gas cause several technical problems for
example, pipelines corrosion, reduce the heating value of natural gas & hydrate formation.
Therefore, wet natural gas should be dried by adopting one of engineering methods for instance,
chemical absorption & adsorption method. In fact, chemical absorption method by glycol may
consider the most successful & economical method to remove water vapor from raw natural gas.
Absorption method is consisted from several industrial units for instance, absorption tower,
regenerator tower & pumps. The accurate engineering design for this process is quite important to
produce a dry natural gas that meets standard gas specifications & contracts and it is depended on
several factors&engineering calculations for instance, glycol circulation rate, heat exchanger
duties & contactor diameter. Therefore, this study is aimed to describe & show the most optimal
engineering design procedure for this process & it is calculated the most obvious process
parameters for example, glycol contactor diameter, heat exchanger duties & glycol circulation
rate.

Key words: Natural gasprocessing, process design, gas dehydration, glycol contactor.

I. Introduction
Natural gas may consider the most popular fossil fuel in recent era as well as the future. Natural
gas poses a huge rule in the recent world economy and development. However, natural gas is
producesfrom deep underground reservoir under certain temperature and pressure. Therefore, it
contentsmany of impurities for example, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen and water vapour. In order
to meet gas pipelinesspecifications, raw natural gas should be treated to either remove or reduce
these impurities for example, H2S must be reduced to less than 4ppm (Stewart & Arnold, 2011).
Indeed, almost hydrocarbon reservoirs around the world produce wet natural gas which contents
various amounts of water.Free water could be removed at wellhead by separator equipment.
However, water vapour is still associated with the natural gas. Indeed, water vapour in natural gas
should be reduced or removed and the main reasons for removing of water from naturalcould be
summarized as following: Water content of natural gas decreases ofits heat value, liquid water in
natural gas pipelines potentially causes slugging flow conditions resulting in lower flow
efficiency of the pipelines (Stewart & Arnold, 2011). In most commercial hydrocarbon processes,

IJSRET @ 2013
 International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET)
Volume 2 Issue 7 pp 440-444 October 2013 www.ijsret.org ISSN 2278 – 0882

the presence of water may cause side reactions, foaming or catalyst deactivation. Therefore, to
prevent such problems, natural gas treating is unavoidable. There are different methods for water
treating of natural gas for example, adsorption, absorption, membrane process, methanol process
and refrigeration (Abdel-Aal, 2003). Among mentioned methods absorption, which is called
dehydration anduse liquid solvent as an absorbent, is mostly common technique for treating of
natural gas (Stewart & Arnold, 2003). Indeed, gas dehydration by glycol is capable to reduce the
water content of natural gas less than 0.1ppm (Thompson, 1991).Glycol process is considered the
most successful and common process in gas industry field. Indeed, this process is utilized glycol
liquid desiccant as a chemical solvent to remove water vapour from natural gas stream. Moreover,
glycol liquid has high affinity toward water vapour and there are several types of glycol that are
used in glycol process for example, monoethylene Glycol MEG and dimethyl Glycol DEG
(Abdel-Aal, 2003). Dehydration process is consisting of several operation units for instance,
contactor tower, regenerator tower and heat exchanger. Fig. 1 shows typical gas dehydration
process by absorption method. During the process, lean glycol such as DEG enter to the
absorption column at the top side which rich solvent is collected at the bottom of the column and
will send to the regenerator (Carroll, 2009). Wet gas enters to the absorption column after passed
through inlet scrubber. The scrubber removes free liquid and liquid droplets in the gas, both water
and hydrocarbons (removing liquid in the scrubber decrease the amount of water that has to
remove in the absorption column, and this also decrease the size of the column and therefore
decrease the TEG needed in process)( Stewart & Arnold, 2011). Heat exchanger uses for cooling
of wet gas before enter to scrubber. Rich TEG passes through a coil, which is used as reflux at the
top of the absorption column; to increase its temperature. A tree phase flash tank uses for removal
of absorbed acidic gases and hydrocarbons in TEG before rich solvent enter to the regenerator,
which is a distillation column, and separate the TEG and water content. Indeed, rich TEG is
preheated in another heat exchanger before it fed to the regeneration section. At the end of the
process cycle, the regenerated TEG will cool in the third step of heat exchanger and will back to
the dehydration column for reuse (Speight, 2010).

Fig. (1) Flow diagram of a typical glycol dehydrator process (Guo, 2011).

IJSRET @ 2013
 International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET)
Volume 2 Issue 7 pp 440-444 October 2013 www.ijsret.org ISSN 2278 – 0882

II. Process design procedure &calculations

Table 1: Case study information & data (Stewart & Arnold, 2011).
Flow rate (Assumed) 98 Mscfd
Pressure 1000 psig
TEG concentration 98.5%
Gas SG (Air=1.0) 0.7
Temperature °C 100°F
Glycol type Triethylene glycol
CD(contactor) 0.852
Pc 669 psia
Tc 376°R

The optimal TEG dehydration process should include the following: contactor diameter, glycol
circulation rate, reboiler duty, sizes the still column, heat duties for gas/glycol exchanger and
glycol/glycol exchangers.

1. Calculate contactor diameter:

.
= 5040
( − )

dM=125 microns (range 120–150 microns) (Stewart & Arnold,2011).

T=570°R, P=1015 psia, Qg=98 MMSCFD, Tr =570/376=1.49, Pr =1015, Z= 0.865

0.67 1015
=
560 0.865
=3.79 lb/ft3
ρl= 70 lb/ft3
CD= 0.852, Thus:
.
560 0.68 98 3.72 0.852
= 5040
1015 (70 − 3.79) 125
=68.2 in, Use 7200ID contactor (Stewart & Arnold, 2011)

2. Determine glycol circulation rate and reboiler duty:

Wi = 63 lb/MMSCF (from McKetta-Wehe)( Stewart& Arnold, 2011)
W0=7 lb/MMSCF (spec), DW=Wi -W0=63-7=56 lb/MMSCF
DW/Wi = 56/63= 0.889
Using n= 2 (i.e., 8 actual trays) and glycol purity of 98.5% read theglycolcirculation rate of 2.8
gal TEG/lb H20. Use 3.0 gal/lb for design( Stewart& Arnold, 2011).
2.0 56 98 ℎ
=
24 ℎ 60
= 11.4 gpm TEG, 862 Btu/ gal
862 11.4 60
=
ℎ
= 590Mbtu/hr
To allow for start-up heat loads, increase heat duty by10% and then select a standard off-the-shelf
fire tube (Stewart & Arnold, 2011).Thus, select a 750 MMBtu/hr

IJSRET @ 2013
 International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET)
Volume 2 Issue 7 pp 440-444 October 2013 www.ijsret.org ISSN 2278 – 0882

3. Design of still column:

Use 12-foot still column (standard packed arrangement), dM= 125 micron, T= 300°F= 760°R, P=
1 psig
10 11 60 24 ℎ
=
ℎ
=0.16 MMSCFD, Z=1.0
. ×
= 2.7 = 0.035 lb/ft3
× .
ρl= 62.4 lb/ft3, CD=14.2 (given)
.
760 1.0 0.16 0.035 14.2
= 5040
16 (62.4 − 0.035) 125
=17.5 inches, Use 18 inch OD x 12 feet long still (Stewart & Arnold, 2011).

4. Calculate duties of heat exchangers

Rich TEG from contactor: T= 100°F (given), Rich TEG to separator: T=200°F (assume for good
design), Rich TEG from reflux: T= 110°F (assume 10°F increase in reflux coil), Rich TEG to
still: T= 300°F (assume for good design), Lean TEG from reboiler: T= 385°F, Lean TEG to
pumps (max): T= 210°F (from manufacturer) (Stewart & Arnold, 2011). Lean TEG to contactor:
T= 110°F (10°F above contactor temperature)

5. Glycol/glycol preheater (rich side, duty):

Rich TEG:T1=110°F (assume 10°F increase in reflux coil), T2= 200°F
70
= (0.985)
7.48
=9.22 lb TEG=gal of lean glycol
70
= (0.015)
7.48
=0.140 lb H2O=gal of lean glycol
Rich glycol composition:WTEG=9.22 lb TEG/gal of lean glycol
0.140 1
= +
3.0
=0.473 lb H2O=gal of lean glycol
Wt:Concentration TEG= 9.22 /(9.22+0.473) =95.1%

6. Glycol/glycol exchanger:
RichT1= 200, T2= 300, LeanT3= 390, T4=?
Rich glycol heat duty: CP (95.1% TEG) = 0.63 at 200 F (from physical properties of TEG) = 0.70
at 300 F, CP, AGV= 0.67 Btu/hr°F
6630 0.67
= (300 − 200)°
ℎ °
= 444 MBtu/hr,Lean glycol flow rate (Wlean):
.
= =6401 lb/hr
.
Calculation of T4, AssumeT=250°F, TAVG= (353 þ250)/2= 302°F
CP,AGV= (98.5% TEG) = 0.67 Btu/lb°F (from physical properties of TEG)
Qlean = WleanCp(T4–T3), Qlean = - qrich
= −
,
= 249 − =157°F(this is less than the maximum allowed to the pumps)
× .

IJSRET @ 2013
 International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET)
Volume 2 Issue 7 pp 440-444 October 2013 www.ijsret.org ISSN 2278 – 0882

T2=110°F, CP (98.5% TEG) = 0.57 at 157°F (from physical properties of TEG)= 0.53 at 110°F
CP,AGV= 0.55 Btu/lb°F, qlean = (6401) (0.55) (110 - 1 57) = -165 MBtu/hr
Glycol/glycol exchanger:
RichT1= 200°F, T0= 300°F, LeanT2= 353°F,T0= 249°F, Duty q= 444 MBtu/hr

III. Results and discussion

The process design procedure is focused on the most critical & important parts of the glycol
dehydration process for example, glycol contactor tower diameter, heat exchanger duties and
TEG circulation rate. Indeed, glycol circulation rate is the most important factor for glycol
dehydration design. Many scholars &researchers indicated that the TEG circulation rate is
contributed in drying process efficiency. The glycolcirculation rate is calculated by engineering
mathematical equations and it’s equal to 11.4 gpm. This value is able to reduce the water vapor in
gas stream to less than 7 lb/MMSCF. Glycol contactor tower diameter is also calculated by
adopting engineering mathematical equations and its equal to 68.2 in or 1.7 m. This value is
definitely comfortable with engineering design considerations and standards. The lean/rich TEG
heat exchanger is also design and the design procedure found out almost operation values for
instance, RichT1= 200°F.

IV. Conclusion
This study is attempted to show & describe the optimal design procedure for natural gas
dehydration by using chemical absorption. The studyis achieved process design calculations for
several process parametersfor instance, glycol contactor tower diameter,TEG circulation rate &
heat exchanger duties. It seems that from above theoretical calculations, the using of chemical
absorption method to dehydrate wet natural gas is quite suitable by adopting the engineering
procedure design to calculate & estimate the most important process factors and values.
Moreover, it seems that from the literature review section, the gas dehydration by using chemical
absorption is the most successful & economical method over other methods.

References
1- Guo, B.(2011)Petroleum Production Engineering, a Computer-Assisted Approach. Tulsa:
Gulf Professional Publishing.
2- M. Stewart, and K. Arnold, Gas Sweetening and Processing Field Manual. Houston: Gulf
Professional Publishing, 2011, pp.51–52.
3- M. Stewart, and K. Arnold, Gas dehydration Field Manual. Houston: Gulf Professional
Publishing, 2011, pp. 40–77.
4- K. Abdel-Aal, Petroleum and Gas Field Processing. New York: CRC Press, 2003, pp.
90–110.
5- R. Thompson, Oilfield processing of petroleum. Tulsa: Penn WellBooks, 1991, pp. 51-
57.
6- J. Carroll, Natural Gas Hydrates. Oxford: Gulf Professional Publishing, 2009, pp. 32-33.

IJSRET @ 2013