Patent
1997-08-29
1999-06-01
Smith, Duane S.
553152, 95228, 95231, 95237, 96242, 96266, 96277, 96295, B01D 4705, B01D 4706
Patent
active
059079240
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates a method of treating a gas, in particular a method of dehydration, and a plant for implementing the method.
The present invention has particular advantages when applied to the dehydration of natural gas.
Advantageously, it can be used to separate condensible hydrocarbons from natural gas, for example those which have at least three carbon atoms.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Petroleum products and natural gas in particular contain products which are undesirable for the purposes of transportation and/or handling.
Of these substances, one of the main constituents to be removed is water, which has proved to encourage the formation of hydrates and is conducive to corrosion. In practice, hydrates can cause transport pipelines to become clogged and blocked, preventing gas from passing through them in the long term, and the corrosive action of the gas causes deterioration in pipelines and processing installations. These two factors are extremely detrimental in terms of their consequences and can often lead to quite lengthy production stoppages because it is very difficult to break down any hydrates which have formed, incurring severe financial losses.
Various methods have been described in the prior art as a means of overcoming these disadvantages.
Patent FR 2.605.241 describes a method of treating natural gas spanning several stages performed in several devices in succession. In a first enclosure, the gas to be treated is brought into contact with a cooled physical solvent in order to produce a gas which is saturated with the added water from the solvent and this gas is then cooled in an exchanger in order to condense the aqueous phase containing the solvent and the saturation water as well as a phase of liquid hydrocarbons. The cooled, dehydrated gas and the fraction containing the condensed hydrocarbons are then separated in a separator unit.
This method has significant advantages as compared with the techniques used in the art. However, the methane and hydrocarbons such as propane as well as hydrocarbons with more than three carbon atoms are not fully separated.
In addition, it is necessary to use at least two devices, which requires additional space in the processing plants incurring the additional capital investment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art and provides a less expensive method of treating gases, in particular natural gas, which contain water in different forms and need to be dehydrated. It can also be applied in the treatment of gas produced in industrial plants, for example refinery gases. The method and plant of the invention require only one enclosure for the dehydration process, for example an exchanger column, which means that the installation is less expensive than plants known from the prior art and requires less space.
It can be applied to advantage in the case of natural gas containing at least water, methane and condensible hydrocarbons such as the C.sub.3+ and/or possibly the C.sub.2+.
Throughout this description, C.sub.3+ will be used to denote hydrocarbons containing at least three carbon atoms per molecule, C.sub.4+ to denote all hydrocarbons having at least four carbons atoms and C.sub.5+ all hydrocarbons having at least five carbon atoms.
The expression "treated gas" will be used to denote dehydrated gas or gas from which at least part of the saturation water has been removed.
The present invention relates to a method of treating a gas containing at least water, the purpose being to remove the water at least partially from the said gas.
It is characterised in that it consists of at least the following steps:
a) the natural gas to be treated is delivered by means of a first line and a liquid fraction containing at least an aqueous phase is delivered by means of a passage in the presence of a solvent into a contact area, for example, in order to bring the said gas and said liquid fraction into direct contact over at least a part of the contact area, the said solvent bei
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Collin Jean-Claude
Larue Joseph
Rojey Alexandre
Institut Francais du Pe'trole
Smith Duane S.
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