Mass Transfer Study of Dehydration by Triethylene Glycol in Rotating Packed Bed for Natural Gas Processing

To ensure steady operation of gas transmission lines and meet the utilization specification of downstream processes, gas dehydration is employed in offshore natural gas production, where urgent demands for space and size exist. In this work, a rotating packed bed (RPB) was used to intensify the triethylene glycol (TEG) dehydration process and the effects of operating variables on the overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient (Kya) and height of mass transfer unit (HTU) were investigated. The value of HTU in a RPB was measured to be 4.3–7.9 mm, which was at least an order of magnitude lower than that in conventional columns, indicating the significant reduction in the size of the dehydration apparatus. The predicted Kya matches well with the experimental data, and the mean relative error (MRE) is only 6.68%.