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Advantages And Disadvantages Of Monoethanolamine

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This section discusses the alkanolamines technologies in terms of solvents development. Triethanolamine (TEA) was the first amine commercially used for gas sweetening in the 1930’s due to its selectivity toward H2S over CO2 at low pressures. However, due to the stringent fuel gas specifications, TEA was replaced by new amines due to its inability to remove H2S and CO2 to meet the specifications. Monoethanolamine (MEA) is the earliest and widely used amine for sweetening sour gas due to its selectivity towards the H2S and CO2 [ ]. However, it has a high vapor pressure, results in high solvent losses. MEA forms non-regenerative (degradation) compounds with CO2 and COS; hence it requires “Reclaimer” to regain the solvent gas absorption efficiency. …show more content…

However, filter system is required to remove the HSAS and particulates from the lean amine system, which will cause foaming in the scrubber columns. In addition to liquid solvents, the solid amine phase solvents are emerging uptrend. Methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) reacts more slowly with CO2 compared to H2S than the previously described amines [ ]. It formed a slightly different salt with CO2 compared to those of the other amines. The difference in the rates of reaction against H2S and CO2 has given MDEA a desirable feature over other amines, especially highly selective towards H2S compared to CO2. Moreover, MDEA is also less corrosive compared to the MEA and DEA. Diisopropanolamine (DIPA) is a secondary amine, predominantly used in Shell SulfinolTM process [ ]. This process uses combination of a chemical solvent, DIPA or MDEA, and a physical solvent, sulfolane. The Sulfinol solution comprises of DIPA and Sulfolane in range of 35 to 45% respectively and the remaining will be water in the solution. Due to the low quantity of water, the regeneration and circulation energy is smaller compared to other amine process and make this process economically attractive for treating gases with a high partial pressure …show more content…

[ ] had done a simulation study in Aspen Plus to optimize the Sulfinol-MTM concentration against the MDEA to improve the absorption and lower energy consumption. For this study, the concentration of sulfolane, MDEA and water were varied and find out the optimum solution which will be effective for the refinery. The sulfolane concentration varied from 41 to 49.5 wt%, MDEA concentration varied from 26.45 to 28.31 wt% and the water quantity varied between 31.6 to 21.4 wt%. Based on the simulation studies, it was observed that for Sarakhs gas refinery would have benefited if the existing MDEA solvent is replaced with Sulfinol-M technologies by means of reduced energy consumption and improved acid gas capture efficiency. However, the paper doesn’t disclose the cost of replacing the existing solvent with new solvent and additional cost benefits due to energy

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