High Pressure Economical Process for Treating Natural Gas

72933S03-I The cost of sulfur removal from natural gas and petroleum has been estimated to be more than $5 billion/year. For sulfur recovery plants that process 10-200 tons of sulfur per day, the cost to operate existing liquid-phase processes are prohibitive. This project will develop a new process called DirectTreat as a lower-cost option for removing sulfur from natural gas streams. DirectTreat is projected to have lower capital and operating costs than either amine+Claus+SCOT or liquid redox processes in plants that remove from 10 to 200 tons per day. Phase I will optimize the DirectTreat catalyst, and the resulting catalyst will be subjected to lifetime testing. The catalyst will then be pelletized and tested in that form. Finally, an economic analysis will be conducted to compare DirectTreat with current sulfur recovery technologies. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by awardee: The DirectTreat process should offer the gas producer and petroleum refiner a much-lower-cost alternative to amine+Claus+SCOT for intermediate-sized sulfur recovery plants. For gas producers, the much lower capital and operating costs should allow the marketing of gas that would otherwise be left in the ground.