Dehydration of Natural Gas

72129S03-I Currently, 55,000 glycol absorption systems are installed in the U.S. to dry natural gas. However, these systems have a number of environmental problems that make them unsuitable for use on offshore platforms. Membrane processes for drying the gas are a candidate solution, but membrane natural gas dehydration systems suffer from the excessive loss of gas with the permeating water vapor. This project will develop a new module design that reduces this methane loss by 50%. In Phase I, the feasibility of the new natural gas dehydration module design will be demonstrated by fabricating and testing bench-scale membrane modules. Sufficient performance data will be obtained to make a realistic technical and economic feasibility analysis of the process. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by awardee: An improved membrane process to dehydrate natural gas should be widely applied by the natural gas processing industry, particularly for offshore or small operations. The new module design developed for this application could also be used in other gas separation processes.