Mathematical Modeling of Adsorptive Natural Gas Dehydration in layered bed of Silica gel and Zeolite-5A

Abstract

The presence of water in the gas flow causes some issues in the transmission processes of natural gas such as pipeline corrosion and clogging of valves. Thus, it is necessary to separate water from gas. In this study, dehumidification of natural gas has been done using adsorption through adsorbents such as silica gel and zeolite-A5. The advantage of these adsorbents is a very low dew point. In this study, an adsorption surface consisting of zeolite and silica gel has been modeled and simulated mathematically. For process modeling, mass balance equations are extracted and water vapor adsorption is just considered.  Also, the effect of methane adsorption on the surface is included to compare the adsorption amount. In this study, a dual-site Langmuir model has been selected for surface adsorption. External resistance of the adsorbent is excluded for calculating the mass transfer rate, and a linear driving force model has been used for modeling the mass transfer inside the adsorbent substances.