Gas dehydration plays an important part in the production of natural gas.Effective dehydration prevents formation of gas hydrates and the accumulationof water in transmission systems, insuring uninterrupted gas deliveries atmaximum efficiency under the most adverse weather conditions. At the presenttime, most gas companies require a maximum water vapor content of seven lb permillion standard cu ft of gas, so that virtually all gas tendered for sale mustbe dehydrated to meet this specification. For a number of years it has been common practice to produce gas and gather itat a common point for dehydration prior to discharge into the transmissionsystem. However, higher transmission line pressures, long gathering lines andrelatively low ground temperatures have made it necessary to dehydrate gas at, or near, individual wells in order to gather gas from a number of newlydeveloped fields without unusual difficulty. Where gas has been dehydrated atpressures ranging from 300 to 800 psi in the past, future trends indicate thatthese processes may be operated at pressures as high as 2,000 psi. Economics of gas dehydration are of great importance, particularly wherefacilities must be provided to process relatively small quantities of gas, suchas the production from an individual well. Although the adsorption of watervapor from gas on a granular sorbent material such as activated bauxite, activated alumina, or one of the alumina-silica gels is highly effective andproduces virtually "bone dry" gas, the cost of a small unit of thistype is substantially greater than that of an absorption process which, throughproper selection of the absorbing liquid, will dehydrate the gas sufficientlyto meet pipe line specifications. For this reason, a great deal of emphasis hasbeen placed on the development of small, inexpensive dehydration units and thesearch for more effective absorbent liquids has been intensified. T.P. 2848