Gas Treating in General

The term gas treating is normally used to cover CO2 removal, H2S removal, water removal, hydrocarbon dew pointing and gas sweetening. Gas sweetening is a generic term for sulfur removal. Sometimes the term ‘gas conditioning’ is used instead of gas treating. This chapter focuses on natural gas. There is limited attention paid to processing gases in a typical chemical engineering curriculum. This is, however, a huge field where many chemical engineers find employment. In general terms, there are four principally different main methods that may be used to separate gases. They include: absorption; adsorption; cryogenics: liquefaction and distillation; membrane permeation.