Thermodynamics Research Center / ThermoML | Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data

ABSTRACT

The Henry's constants of H2S, CO2, CH4, and C2H6 in a hydrophobic solvent (HPS) were determined to evaluate the potential use of the HPS for natural gas sweetening applications. The gas solubilities were evaluated at atmospheric pressure in the temperature range of 298-353 K. The Henry's constant of N2O in the HPS was also determined and used to differentiate the physical absorption of the acid gases from the chemical absorption. The temperature-dependent Henry's constant correlations of these gases were developed and used to determine the separation performance of the HPS in a simple absorber process simulation. The simulation results suggest that HPS can remove acid contaminants and achieve the targeted quality of natural gas for liquid natural gas (LNG) production. The HPS exhibits rather high CH4 and C2H6 absorption, and consequently, has low acid gas selectivity compared to the commercially available physical solvent. the acid gas selectivity can be optimized with the inclusion a limited quantity of a hydrophilic component to enhance H2S and CO2 while still minimizing the hydrocarbons solubilities.