Experimental study on acid gas removal using absorption-adsorption unit

摘要

Acid gas removal is an important gas treatment in natural gas process. It is because carbon dioxide (CO2) can cause global warming beside, if more than 3% of CO2 composition in natural gas, it is unmarketable. CO2 also cause corrosion to the pipeline because it can react with water vapor to form a carbonic acid. Nowadays, among the most effective and economic acid gas removal is by using package blended amine, for example MEA and MDEA in aqueous solution. This research focused on the percentage removal efficiency of CO2 based on parameters such as MEA/MDEA mixture composition and amine concentration in an absorption-adsorption unit. The experiments began by combining methane and CO2 flowrate to represent actual sour gas. The sour gas will flow through the absorption-adsorption column and at the same time, amine solvent flow through that column countercurrently with the gas. Amine solvent flows using the circulation pump at the flowrate 120 L/hr. For parameter MEA/MDEA mixture composition, five different ratios of amine solvents were used in every 10 minutes of experiment. The second parameter used is MDEA various concentrations by using the best amine mixture of the first parameter. As a result, increasing the composition of MDEA in MEA/MDEA mixture and increasing the MDEA concentration tend to increase the removal of acid gas. Thus, in analyzing the acid gas removal process efficiency in absorption-adsorption unit, parameters such as MEA/MDEA blending composition and MDEA concentration are among to be considered for reliability and economic benefits.-Author-