OPTIMIZATION OF PROCESS VARIABLES IN AMINE ABSORPTION SYSTEM TO ACHIEVE MINIMUM REBOILER DUTY (AND OPTIMUM CO2 REMOVAL) USING ICON SIMULATION TOOL

Natural gas (which is a naturally gaseous hydrocarbon constituted of mainly methane, other hydrocarbons and other impurities including acid gases) is often contemplated as one of the cleanest fossil fuels which can be further described as a safe energy source. The process of eliminating these acid gases like hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from natural gas is essential to meet specifications of sales gas. While many research studies that have been done towards removal of these acid gases, chemical absorption has been one of the mature technologies which are widely used in this field. However, a major drawback of using this method is that it has high reboiler energy requirement. Thus, this project is performed to determine impact of tuning the variables and propose optimized condition in regards to reducing the reboiler duty of amine absorption unit with MDEA/DEA solvent mixture by using iCON simulation tool. For this study, absorber and regenerator columns model were developed and validated in iCON. The parameters best range was then evaluated and the significance of influencing parameters for absorber model was analyzed using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) via Design Expert software.