Method for purifying glycol used as a hydrate inhibitor
AssigneeNovasep Process
InventorsFrédéric Schab, Michel Cotillon, Teddy Ebran, Vincent Gavroy
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Abstract
The invention concerns a purification method comprising: providing a flow comprising a glycol, monovalent ions and multivalent ions; treating this flow with ion exclusion chromatography comprising: injecting the flow into a chromatographic unit comprising an ion exchange stationary phase; injecting an eluent into the chromatographic unit; collecting a fraction at the outlet of the chromatographic unit; the collected fraction being enriched with glycol and depleted of monovalent ions and multivalent ions relative to the flow. The invention also concerns an installation adapted to implement this method, and its application to the regeneration of an anti-hydrate agent.
Claims11
A purification method comprising:
- a) providing a flow comprising a glycol, monovalent ions and divalent cations wherein the monovalent ions comprise Na+ and optionally K+ cations, and the divalent cations comprise Ca2+ and optionally Mg2+ cations and wherein the flow has a ratio, in equivalents, of divalent cations to total cations of 5 to 90%;
- and
- b) treating this flow with ion exclusion chromatography comprising:
- i) injecting the flow into an ion exclusion chromatographic unit comprising an ion exchange stationary phase, wherein the stationary phase is a strong cationic resin partly in monovalent cationic form and partly in divalent cationic form;
- ii) injecting an eluent into the ion exclusion chromatographic unit, wherein the eluent is water;
- and
- iii) collecting a fraction at the outlet of the ion exclusion chromatographic unit;
- the collected fraction being enriched with glycol and depleted of monovalent ions and divalent cations relative to the flow,
- wherein the ion exclusion chromatography leads to separation of glycol both from monovalent ions and from divalent cations.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.