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International Journal of Chemical & Petrochemical Technology (IJCPT) ISSN(P): 2277–4807; ISSN(E): 2319–4464 Vol. 10, Issue 2, Dec 2020, 1–12 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd. NATURAL GAS PROCESSING – DESIGNING AND SIMULATION SARTHAK VAIDYA Datta Meghe College of Engineering, University of Mumbai, Airoli, Mumbai, India ABSTRACT Natural Gas is an important, non-renewable gas which is obtained along with crude oil extraction. Raw Natural gas contains a high amount of impurities and acidic gases. It is extremely important to remove these gases for efficient combustion of products. Natural gas processing is the term used for the separation of Natural gas stream into commercially viable products such as LNG, LPG, and NAPTHA. This paper emphasizes on design and simulation of the processing of natural gas to yield maximum productivity of LNG and LPG. It also focuses on reducing acid gas content from the "Raw natural gas" stream. Simulation is performed by using DWSIM software. Effect on LPG production by varying the operating parameters such as Reflux Ratio, operating pressure, and Number of trays is also studied. Around 96% of LNG and 95% of LPG were produced when the process flowsheet was simulated. Also, the developed process is found to be energy efficient as only two fractionating towers are required to obtain the optimum production yield. KEYWORDS: Simulation, Natural Gas Processing, Process Design, LPG, LNG, & DWSIM Original Article Received: Sep 19, 2020; Accepted: Oct 09, 2020; Published: Oct 23, 2020; Paper Id.: IJCPTDEC20201 INTRODUCTION Natural gas, sometimes also called as fossil gas, is naturally occurring gas inside Earth's crust. It is a non-renewable source of energy containing low molecular weight hydrocarbons. Natural gas is widely used for cooking, heating and electricity generation. It is found deep inside the earth's crust, underground rock formations, or associated with other hydrocarbon reservoirs in coal beds and as methane clathrates. Primarily, Natural gas is found along with crude oil. The primary source for formation of the oil and gas is microscopic marine organisms, also known as Plankton. The formation of Oil and gas will start proceeding only when the marine life above sea bed is sufficient enough to accumulate on seabed along with sediments coming off the land. As more sediments are accumulated over the years, they start to pressurize the organic matter beneath them. This results in rising the temperature of that layer to a point that it breaks down the organic matter and releases the accumulated oil and gas. The Raw Natural gas, which is extracted from source rock or oil well, contains high amount of impurities including water, carbon dioxide, and Hydrogen sulphide. Hence, Natural gas processing is an extremely important step before its commercial utilization. Natural gas processing is a complex industrial process which is designed to purify the raw natural gas extracted from field source by removing impurities, acidic gases and separating heavier hydrocarbons and fluids to pipeline-quality dry natural gas [1]. Depending upon the source, the composition of natural gas can vary. Usually, it contains about 75-80% of Methane, 5-10 % of ethane and propane, and 0-5% of heavier hydrocarbons. Mainly, every source contains about 1-2 % of Carbon dioxide (CO2) and Hydrogen sulphide (H2S). These gases are also called as "Acidic Gases". These gases are highly corrosive, hence their presence in final products can corrode the pipelines and also affect the calorific values. The presence of CO2 content can cause undesired hydrate formation and severe problems in the cryogenic process. It is extremely important to reduce the www.tjprc.org [email protected] 2 Sarthak Vaidya acid gas content from the Natural gas stream. This process is termed as "Gas Sweetening". Once the Acidic gases are removed, Natural gas is further processed and separated into Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), and NAPTHA as products. The natural gas is also extracted from coal reservoirs and coal mines (coal bed methane), which usually contains a mix of mostly methane and about 10 percent carbon dioxide (CO2) [2]. The processing of Natural gas is easier, less complicated and more efficient than crude oil and is equally important before it is used by consumers [3]. LPG burns cleaner with octane number closer to 105 and is used as fuel in vehicles as an alternative to petrol and diesel [4]. Flowsheet development and its simulation is an important step in process development and modification. Flowsheet provides a safe and inexpensive method to obtain and validate the designed process. The simulation model consists of both geometrical parameters like vessel dimensions, heat transfer area, number of trays in a column etc. and operation variables like temperature, pressure, feed ratio, etc. [5]. Many simulators available in the market which are used by industry and academic professionals. Here, DWSIM is used for modelling and simulation of the process. It is a multiplatform, CAPE-OPEN compliant chemical process simulator for Windows, Linux, Android, macOS, and iOS. Built on the top of the Microsoft .NET and Mono Platforms and featuring a rich Graphical User Interface (GUI). DWSIM can understand the behaviour of their chemical systems and solve the processes by using rigorous thermodynamic and unit operations models. Numerous experiments were performed and studied for the processing of Natural gas. Various processes for separation into LPG, LNG, and NGL are suggested by Industry engineers and academic researchers, depending upon the requirements of the products. Housam Binous and Ahmed Bellagi, studied and simulated, five different cases for separation of industrially relevant hydrocarbon mixture [6]. Their main agenda was to show that complex separations can be handled by computer algebra Mathematica© and compare the results with those obtained in Aspen-HYSYS. The five cases were: separation of natural gas, using Furfural as entrainer, fractionate C4 to separate 1,3-butadiene, producing methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) from methanol and i-butene, decomposition of MTBE to methanol and i-butene, and the equilibrium-limited metathesis of cis-2-pentene to cis-2-butene and cis-2-hexene. Shuaib A. Khan et al. developed a process for efficient recovery of LPG and Natural gas liquids (NGL) [7]. In their process, they cooled the vapour stream obtained as top product form Deethanizer column and then mixed it with gaseous feed stream. This contact between two streams took place inside the heat exchanger which results in large fraction of Methane and small traces of Ethane, which constitutes of NGL. Ali I. Shehata et al. studied the simulation of the Natural gas process using Aspen-HYSYS, to yield optimum results for NGL production with minimum power consumption [8]. They identified that number of trays in the Distillation column plays an important role in separation of the feed stream. By increasing the number of trays from 10-40, mole fractions of ethane, propane, and butane in the LNG product stream was increased by 2%, 4.5%, and 21% respectively. Also, heat duties from Deethanizer, Depropanizer, and Debutanizer columns werereduced by 1.5%, 1.7%, and 29%. Khaled M. ElBadawy et al. studied the design and simulation of LPG plant to minimize the heat consumption of each of fractionation towers used [9]. To obtain individual products such as methane, ethane, propane, and butane, different fractionation towers like Demethanizer, Deethanizer, Depropanizer, and Debutanizer were used. Simulation was performed using Aspen HYSYS software. They studied LPG production by varying the feed tray and operating pressure of the Depropanizer column. The heat duty was found to be lowest when the feed tray was in the exact centre of the Depropanizer column. Also, they found that heat duty was reduced by 45.9% when operating pressure was decreased from 10 bar to 8 bar. Many other studies were performed to improve the purity and productivity of LPG, NGL, and LNG as well as Impact Factor (JCC): 5.5342 NAAS Rating: 3.56 Natural Gas Processing – Designing And Simulation 3 reducing the energy consumption, by studying parameters like reflux ratio, and the number of trays inside each tower [10- 16]. This paper focuses on the development of a process to obtain high production yield, at a lower cost. This paper also emphasizes the effect on productivity when parameters such as Reflux Ratio, Pressure, and Number of trays for LPG column are varied. METHODS Process Description As the main commercial products of Natural Gas are LNG and LPG, this process focuses on cumulative production of LNG (Methane and Ethane), and LPG (Propane, n-Butane, iso-Butane, etc.). Gas Sweetening Natural gas feed stream maintained at 330K, 60 atm pressure, and a molar flowrate of 5000 Kmol/h. The feed stream is passed through a vapour-liquid separator, also called as Flash Drum or Knockout Drum (KOD). Table 1: Feed Stream Composition Mole Fractions Methane 0.815 Ethane 0.079 Propane 0.068 N-Butane 0.0047 Isobutane 0.0033 Isopentane 0.002 N-pentane 0.003 N-Hexane 0.002 N-Heptane 0.0018 Carbon-dioxide 0.012 Hydrogen sulphide 0.008 Nitrogen 0.0012 Table 2: Feed Stream Conditions Temperature 330K Pressure 60 atm Molar Flowrate 5000 Kmol/hr When the feed is flashed, vaporized feed is passed through the upper part, and liquid feed is collected at the bottom of KOD. The vapour feed is further sent to Acid-Gas absorber (C-1201). The corrosive acidic gases in the feed stream are absorbed here. The solvent used here is a blend of Monoethylamine (MEA), Diethylamine (DEA), and water in mole ratio of 0.4 : 0.4 : 0.2. The number of stages in absorber is 45, with feed stage being 1, and the solvent stage being 45 respectively Top product consisted of less than 0.02% of CO2 and H2S, 5% of the solvent mixture, and 94.88% of Hydrocarbon gases.