Laboratory study of hydrogen sulfide removal in slug flows in a high pressure crude oil loop

    Authors

    J. Lee;R. Kumar

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Cryst. Growth Des.

    Keywords

    two phase flow; hydrogen sulfide in crude oil; high pressure loop; Energy & Fuels; Engineering, Petroleum

    Abstract

    Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) undergoes decompression during petroleum extraction from oil reservoirs, during which a certain amount of H2S-scavenging liquid compound is added to absorb H2S in the pipelines. All experiments were conducted in a high pressure flow loop with a thousand feet of coiled tubing to simulate the horizontal section of the pipeline that runs along the ocean floor from the reservoir at 20 bar (1 bar = 101.3 kpa) and room temperature with a 40 ppm H2S gas concentration in nitrogen (N-2). This paper reports experimental results on the role of superficial liquid and gas velocities (0.2-0.5 m/s and 0.4-1.1 m/s) on H2S removal. All experimental tests were conducted in the slug flow regime, thus this paper also reports the effects of pressure and the distance to which this flow regime prolongs, which is correlated to the H2S removal efficiency. Results indicate that an increase in superficial gas velocity at low superficial liquid velocity decreases the scavenger efficiency while the opposite is seen at high superficial liquid velocity. In addition, an increase in pressure shifts the transition zones in the flow regime altering the scavenger efficiency. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

    Volume

    J. Pet. Sci. Eng.

    Publication Date

    1-1-2013

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    72

    Last Page

    79

    WOS Identifier

    103

    ISSN

    0920-4105

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