selecting the best amine in the natural gas sweetening process

Iran is the third producer and fourth consumer of natural gas in the world. the natural gas sweetening process uses an absorber and a regenerator unit. the absorber unit sweetens the sour gas and the regenerator unit retrieves the amine. selecting the proper solvent is a crucial subject in designing natural gas sweetening processes. the solvent plays a crucial role in removing the h2s and co2 from the sour gas, and it greatly affects the energy consumption rate of the process. therefore, this study analyzes three different amines of diethanolamine (dea), mono ethanolamine (mea) and methyl diethanolamine (mdea) in the gas sweetening process. all the processes have been simulated with and without thermal integration. results show the usage of mea and dea solvents instead of mdea reduces the overall solvent consumption by 83%. also, the usage of dea instead of mea and mdea reduces the process energy consumption by 57% and 89% respectively. therefore, this study selects the dea solvent as the superior possible option because of its lower energy and discharge consumption rates.