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AN INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR NATURAL

GAS SWEETENING BY MEANS OF CRYOGENIC...

Conference Paper September 2015

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10 authors, including:

Laura A. Pellegrini Stefano Lang

Politecnico di Milano Politecnico di Milano
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Stefania Moioli Barbara Picutti

Politecnico di Milano Maire Tecnimont Group
33 PUBLICATIONS 287 CITATIONS 10 PUBLICATIONS 92 CITATIONS

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Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Modelling of H2S and CO2 removal by MDEA scrubbing View project

NATURAL GAS SWEETENING BY MEANS OF CRYOGENIC DISTILLATION View project

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 AN INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR NATURAL GAS SWEETENING
BY MEANS OF CRYOGENIC DISTILLATION.

Laura A. Pellegrini, Stefano Lang

Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Oldrich Mikus
Stamicarbon (Maire Tecnimont Group), The Netherlands

Barbara Picutti (*), Paolo Vergani, Guido Franzoni, Marco Lo Savio, Fabio Brignoli
Tecnimont (Maire Tecnimont Group), Italy

ABSTRACT

The application of traditional chemical absorption of CO2 and H2S by means of alkanolamines is
not competitive for natural gas sweetening when the amount of acid gas is high, because the energy
required by these processes is proportional to the quantity of acid components to be removed.
On the other hand, the cryogenic distillation technologies can be usefully applied to process natural
gas with any amount of acid components, since the costs are incrementally reduced, the higher the
acid gas content in the stream.
In the amine washing separation methods, CO2 and H2S are recovered at low pressures (nominally
1-2 bar) and need then to be dried and then compressed for re-injection into underground storage;
on the contrary cryogenic distillation technologies discharge the CO2 and H2S mixture as a high
pressure liquid, with a commercial advantage when this stream is re-injected for storage into
depleted reservoirs or for EOR purposes.
An innovative process based on a "dual-pressure" cryogenic distillation unit is proposed with its
two sections (the high-pressure column for the CO2 bulk removal and the low-pressure column for
the methane recovery) working across the critical pressure of methane and the SVL locus of the
binary CO2-CH4 mixture. This allows a complete separation of CO2 and H2S from methane, while
avoiding the CO2 freezing.
A dynamic simulation study has been developed in order to validate the process architecture and to
define the unit start-up procedure, while a laboratory experimental campaign is beginning.

Contact details:
Barbara Picutti (*) Laura. A. Pellegrini
Research, Innovation and Development Head of Full Professor of Chemical Plants
Department Politecnico di Milano
Tecnimont S.p.A. Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, 20133 Milano
Via Gaetano de Castillia, 6/A, 20124 Milano Phone: +39 02 2399 3237
Phone: +39 02 6313 9813 Email: laura.pellegrini@polimi.it
Email: B.Picutti@tecnimont.it

(*) Corresponding author

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