Nitrogen physical adsorption and adsorption equilibrium for natural gas dehydration on zeolite 3A and 4A

Natural gas dehydration is one of the crucial upstream operation processes to protect the gas transportation pipeline and fulfill the sale gas specification. The most commonly used technology for the gas dehydration is glycol absorption. Even though the glycol absorption is effective for practical dehydration application, but it still have various drawbacks related to its operation, environmental effect (due to chemical carry-over), large footprint, and frequent monitoring and maintenance. Physical adsorption with zeolite material has been identified as a potential alternative for dehydration technology. Based on the preliminary screening work, zeolite 3A and 4A have been identified for further performance evaluation due to its potential for practical dehydration application. The performance is based on dehydration capacity of these adsorbents which was evaluated through nitrogen physical adsorption and equilibrium adsorption using Magnetic Suspension Balance (MSB). The results showed that physical adsorption potentially gives better or at par separation efficiency as compared to absorption dehydration process and greener technology approach.