A new adsorption process to intensify liquefied petroleum gas recovery from raw natural gas

Raw natural gas from gas wells typically consists of methane, gaseous hydrocarbons, acid gases, water, liquid hydrocarbons, etc. The raw natural gas must be purified to produce the pipeline quality dry natural gas for residential, commercial and industrial consumers. The existing natural gas processing often roughly separates the raw natural gas into gaseous phase dry natural gas and liquid-phase gas condensate without extracting the high-priced liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). And thus, the LPG is sold along with cheaper dry gas and natural gas condensate. In addition, the gas condensate, in which LPG components like propane and butane, are often stored under atmospheric pressure, and most LPG components will be burnt after escaping from the breathing valve, which will also harm the environment. Some companies have tried to add LPG production line by adding more columns, which is not feasible economically. We present a new chemical adsorption flowsheet to enhance the LPG recovery. A comparison between the two processes is made, and the result shows that the chemical adsorption process is highly economical.