Use glycerol to dehydrate supercritical carbon dioxide

摘要

Twenty years after the first two glycerol dehydration units were built for supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) use, Den-bury Resources found a need to build new units to process the increasing amount of CO2 production from the Jackson Dome area in Mississippi. Denbury has now completed and started up five new glycerol-based dehydration facilities in the past five years, with other units under construction. Glycerol is used to dehydrate CO2 when high-pressures and non-idealities cause excessive vapor-phase glycol (i.e., ethylene, diethylene or trietheylene glycol) losses, making normal glycol-based dehydration uneconomical in comparison with glycerol-based dehydration. Denbury uses the supercritical CO2 primarily for enhanced oil recovery (EOR).