Method of purifying a natural gas by mercaptan adsorption
AssigneeInstitut Francais du Petrole
InventorsMichel Thomas, Eszter Toth, Fabrice Lecomte, Géraldine Laborie, Chantal Rigaill
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The raw natural gas is pretreated in treating unit 30. The treated gas is then purified by adsorption of the mercaptans in first enclosure 31. The various cuts that make up the purified gas are separated in fractionating unit 34. Part of the methane making up the purified gas is saturated with a C5+ hydrocarbon in contactor 33, then it is fed into second enclosure 32 so as to regenerate the adsorbent material contained in this second enclosure. The gas from the second enclosure is washed in unit 35, then recycled.
Claims11
A method of purifying a natural gas containing mercaptans, comprising the following stages:
- a) purifying said gas by contacting with a first amount of adsorbent material,
- b) mixing part of the purified gas obtained in stage a) with a liquid hydrocarbon phase comprising more than five carbon atoms,
- c) contacting the mixture obtained in stage b) with a second amount of adsorbent material laden with mercaptans.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.