Abstract
During development of high sulfur-content natural gas fields, gaseous sulfur is likely to precipitate and deposit in the reservoir and transmission pipelines owing to changes in the temperature, pressure, and gas components. It is important to accurately predict the elemental sulfur solubility in hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, and methane because these are the three main components of high-sulfur-content natural gas. The binary interaction coefficients between sulfur and hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, and methane are the key parameters for predicting the sulfur solubility with a thermodynamic model. In this work, we show that the binary interaction coefficients are not constant, but temperature dependent. Three-parameter temperature-dependent equations for the binary interaction coefficients between sulfur and solvents are proposed. The corresponding regression equations for calculating the binary interaction coefficients between sulfur and hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, and methane are obtained using experimental sulfur solubility data. The average relative errors of the sulfur solubility predicted using the experimental data in hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, and methane using the thermodynamic model with the improved binary interaction coefficients are 6.30%, 1.69%, and 4.34%, and the average absolute relative errors are 7.90%, 13.12%, and 14.98%, respectively. Comparing the improved binary interaction coefficients with four other sets of reported values shows that the solubility values predicted by the thermodynamic model with improved binary interaction coefficients fit the experimental data better.
Highlights
High-sulfur-content natural gas contains hydrogen sul de, mercaptans, sulfoethers, and other sulfurous substances, with hydrogen sul de gas comprising the majority of all sulfurous substances
We investigated the relationships between the binary interaction coefficients and temperature to extend the range and improve the accuracy of predicting the sulfur solubility in H2S, CO2, and CH4 using a thermodynamic model based on the Peng–Robinson (PR) equation of state (EoS)
The sulfur solubility in H2S predicted by the thermodynamic model using the proposed binary interaction coefficient between sulfur and H2S obtained by eqn (23) is shown in Table 5, along with the experimental results of Roof and Gu at temperatures of 316.26, 338.71, and 363.15 K and in the pressure range 7.03–32.03 MPa.[13,16]
Summary
High-sulfur-content natural gas contains hydrogen sul de, mercaptans, sulfoethers, and other sulfurous substances, with hydrogen sul de gas comprising the majority of all sulfurous substances. The hydrogen sul de volume contents in natural gas mixtures are 15% to 18% in the Puguang Gas Field (China).[1] High-sulfur-content natural gas elds supply clean energy, and raw materials for sulfur series products.[2] deposited elemental sulfur may cause pore formation, wellbore blockage, and even transmission pipeline blockage and corrosion with changes in pressure, temperature, and gas components.[3,4,5] This can lead to the normal production of the gas eld being severely inhibited.[6,7,8,9] In recent years, the problem of sulfur deposition has received extensive attention. Elemental sulfur solubility in high-sulfur-content natural gas is the key factor determining whether sulfur deposition occurs.[10,11,12]
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