Discussion on the process for sour natural gas purification by hydrate formation

The existence of acidic components such as H2S,CO2 and organic sulfides in natural gas would not only cause metal erosion and environmental contamination,but would also impair the natural gas transportation,processing and usage.The purification of sour natural gas to meet the commodity gas quality requirement or pipeline gas soecification is an important stage for natural gas utilization.The phase equilibrium data of gas hydrates from the literatures showed that the hydrate formation conditions of unitary gases of CH4,CO2 and H2S,and ternary gases of CH4-H2S-O2 in pure water were obviously different,so H2S and CO2 in natural gas could be separately removed by forming hydrates.Based on that,a novel process for purification of sour natural gas using hydrate formation is proposed to optimize the process,reduce the energy consumption and improve removal efficiency of the acidic components in natural gas.