Assessment of new and improved solvent for pre-elimination of BTEX emissions in glycol dehydration processes

•Evaluation of a novel solvent (mMEG) for BTEX emission elimination.•mMEG solvent showed a significant improvement to eliminate BTEX emissions.•Phase envelope was determined to evaluate mMEG at different dehydration processes.•mMEG is proposed for environmental friendly high-performance process.

Emission of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) from natural gas dehydration units was highlighted as an acute environmental impact. Furthermore, recent stringent environmental regulations addressed a pressing need of knowledge to eliminate hydrocarbon's emissions from glycol dehydrators. The primary objective of this study is to combine the minimization of BTEX emissions with an efficient dew point control. However, the approach in this research emphasis on the cause of the BTEX emissions rather than the post treatment process. Chemically modified monoethylene glycol (mMEG) is proposed as a new solvent to replace triethylene glycol (TEG) in the dehydration process. The results of this study showed a significant improvement in the dehydration performance together with the elimination of (BTEX) emissions. The results demonstrated that mMEG could produce gas water content of 0.16 ppm (7.6 × 10−3 lb/mmscf) and near zero level of BTEX. This investigation suggests that using mMEG can solve the environmental issue of BTEX in the natural gas dehydration process.

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