Abstract:
Objective The traceability and quantitative analysis is carried out for the droplets entrained by the purified gas at the outlet of the dehydration unit in the natural gas purification plant.
Methods Component analysis was carried out for droplet sampled from the external pipeline, and droplet on-line detection was carried out on the outlet of the natural gas dehydration device (triethylene glycol absorption tower) with four stable production operations.
Results The experimental analysis showed that the collection solution samples were mainly composed of triethylene glycol and tetramethylene sulfone and the mass fractions of them were 89% and 10% respectively. The mass concentration of the outlet droplets was less than 300 mg/m3, the proportion of droplets with a particle size of less than 1 μm was greater than 90%, and the peak particle size dmod was about 0.2 μm. Moisture treatment capacity and gas-phase pressure changes directly affect droplet distribution characteristics. The results showed that the droplets in the downstream external pipeline of the dehydration device were generated by the gas-liquid entrainment of the triethylene glycol absorption tower and the upstream desulfurization device, and the mass concentration of the entrained droplets in the absorption tower was significantly increased because of the increase of moisture treatment capacity, and the larger droplets (particle diameter greater than 0.5 μm) were more easily entrained in the outlet gas at the moisture treatment capacity(20 ℃, 101. 325 kPa) range of 260×104-290×104 m3/d and 550×104-650×104 m3/d. When the gas phase pressure was 5.1-6.0 MPa, the increase of pressure has no significant effect on the mass concentration of entrained droplets, but it would lead to the narrowing of the particle size distribution of the outlet droplets.
Conclusions The source and distribution characteristics of entrained droplets in the external gas transmission of the triethylene glycol dehydration unit is clarified, which can provide theoretical reference for the filtration and separation scheme of entrained droplets from the technical level.