Adsorbents for Dehydration of Sweet Wet Gas: Advances and Trends

Abstract

After acid gases are eliminated, dehydration is a basic operation in natural gas conditioning as it prevents the acid gases formation, the corrosion of pipelines and valves and the formation of natural gas hydrates. There are different techniques to dehydrate natural gas, for example: absorption using drying fluids, adsorption using solid adsorbents, inhibitors of hydrates formation and dehydration by cooling. Between the different drying materials used to dehydrate natural gas, synthetic zeolites have been widely used due to its large surface area, high ability to retain water and easy regeneration. Moreover, these adsorbents can be synthesized from waste materials, have being this fact a competitive advantage over other materials. Currently, there are other available materials such as hydrophilic polymers, polymeric membranes and selective water sorbents (SWS), designed for adsorption of water molecules contained in gas.