Mass Transfer Performance of CO2 Absorption from Natural Gas using Monoethanolamine (MEA) in High Pressure Operations

Most carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption studies that use amine based solvents for flue gas treatments were conducted at atmospheric pressure. This study reports the absorption performance of monoethanolamine (MEA) for the removal of CO2 from natural gas (NG) at high pressure conditions. The absorption experiments were conducted in an absorption column packed with Sulzer metal gauze packing at 5.0 MPa operating pressure. The effects of gas flow rate (18.89–35.08 kmol/m2·h), liquid flow rate (1.81–4.51 m3/m2·h), MEA concentration (1.0–4.0 kmol/m3), and liquid temperature (27–45 °C) on the mass transfer performance were evaluated in terms of CO2 removal (%) and overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient (K G a v). From this study, the K G a v was found to increase with increasing liquid flow rate and MEA concentration. However, the mass transfer performance was not affected by the total gas flow rate. The optimum condition for liquid temperature was found to be at 40 °C.