Simulation for Absorption of Acid Gas into Piperazine Promoted Methyl Diethanolamine Solution Using Sieve Tray Column

Abstract

The removal of CO2 and H2S gas is a crucial process in the sweetening of natural gas. One of the processes for taking these gases is reactive absorption using piperazine (PZ) promoted methyl diethanolamine (MDEA) solution. The absorption process is carried out in the sieve tray column to avoid liquids distribution problems in large diameter columns. No research discusses the acid gas absorption process simulation in the MDEA-PZ system using a sieve tray column. Therefore, this research simulates the acid gas absorption process in the MDEA-PZ system using a sieve tray column with a rate based modeling approach. The development of the rate-based model is based on the Film model’s theory. The effect of the reaction on the mass transfer coefficient is expressed by the enhancement factor. The diffusion interaction of the components in the mixture is expressed by the Stefan-Maxwell equation. The research’s main objective is to observe the effect of lean amine temperature and absorber pressure on the percentage removal of CO2 and H2S. The simulation prediction results showed the highest percentage of CO2 and H2S removal when the lean amine temperature was 60°C and the absorber pressure was 35 atm.