The effect of increasing CO2concentration and flow rate on amine still performance in meeting gas sale specifications

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of increasing CO2removal and flow rate on performance of an amine still. The amine still is located in Field X in South East Sumatra at a new gas well producing gases with a rich CO2content. The still uses activated MDEA as the amine and has an IMTP 40-type packing column. Two film and desorption equilibrium curve theories were employed to analyse the amine still design conditions. Design equations were utilized to find the slope of the equilibrium curve. A slope of the equilibrium curve of 45° in the amine still is obtained in this study. The maximum liquid CO2composition of the amine still feedstock (xo) which can be separated to produce lean amine according to the specification design flow rate is 0.0307. The total flow rate of CO2-rich amine at xo= 0.029 is 761,157.6 kg/hour; the total flow rate of CO2-rich amine atxo= 0.0295 is 628,861.1 kg/hour; the total flow rate of CO2- rich amine at xo= 0.03 is 513,962.6 kg/hour; and the total flow rate of CO2-rich amine at xo= 0.0305 is 409,575.3 kg/hour.