Natural gas dehydration by desiccant materials
Abstract Water vapor in a natural gas stream can result in line plugging due to hydrate formation,
reduction of line capacity due to collection of free water in the line, and increased risk of damage to
the pipeline due to the corrosive effects of water. Therefore, water vapor must be removed from
natural gas to prevent hydrate formation and corrosion from condensed water.
Gas dehydration is the process of removing water vapor from a gas stream to lower the temperature
at which water will condense from the stream; this temperature is called the ‘‘dew point’’ of
the gas.
Molecular sieves are considered as one of the most important materials that are used as
desiccant materials in industrial natural gas dehydration.
This work shows a study of natural gas dehydration using 3A molecular sieve as a type of solid
desiccant materials, the scope of this work was to build up a pilot scale unit for a natural gas dehydration
as simulation of actual existing plant for Egyptian Western Desert Gas Company (WDGC).
The effect of different operating conditions (water vapor concentration and gas flow rate) on dehydration
of natural gas was studied.