The following article was selected for presentation at

GLYCOL RECLAIMER
K. Dave Diba, M. Guglielminetti, S.Schiavo
Engineering & Contracting

ABSTRACT
All glycols used for dehydration by
absorption in counter current Tri-ethylene
glycol (TEG), and Mono-ethylene glycol
(MEG) used for glycol injection for hydrate
prevention will require reclaiming. The
intervals at which reclaiming is required
will vary from a month or two for very
foul solutions to a year or more for those
that are properly conditioned in the course
of operation.
It should be remembered that glycol
solutions are small in quantity compared
to the multi-millions cubic meters of gas
and condensate that they contact.
Contaminants such as salts, lube oil,
hydrocarbon condensate, crude oil and
corrosion products are present in
abundance in liquid phase and in minute
trace amount in the gas; and they
continually plague operators in their glycol

systems, and the symptoms of these

problems are fouled equipment, foaming
in the system resulting in expensive glycol
losses, and insufficient process capability.
Shutting a plant down to thoroughly clean
and repair all the equipment is a periodic
necessity and very expensive.
MEG catches most contaminants and they
accumulate in the plants glycol inventory
until they create severe operational
problems. Most operators drain the
contaminated glycol charge and discard
it, replacing it with a charge of new glycol.
This begins a new cycle that ends in the
same way month(s) later.
Other plants loose so much contaminated
glycol in normal operations that replacing
the losses with new glycol keeps the
contamination at a tolerable level due to
continuous addition of makeup glycol.

Copyright OMC 2003

This paper was presented at the Offshore Mediterranean Conference and Exhibition in Ravenna,
Italy, March 26-28, 2003. It was selected for presentation by the OMC Programme Committee
following review of information contained in the abstract submitted by the author. The Paper as
presented at OMC 2003 has not been reviewed by the Programme Committee.

GLYCOL RECLAIMER
INTRODUCTION
It is the purpose of this paper to review the contaminants,
the basic technology available, and the facilities available
for reclaiming glycols.
Contaminants
Principal among these are:
1. Organic acids
2. Inorganic acids
3. Iron carbonates and iron sulfides, products of corrosion
caused by CO2 and H2S in the feed gas.
4. Decomposition products from glycol degradation, and
heat stable salts.
5. Coke formed by thermal decomposition of heavy
hydrocarbons in glycol emulsion.
6. Crude oil, condensate and compressor lube oil in glycol
emulsion.
7. Aromatic hydrocarbons that dissolve in glycols.
8. Salts, and total solids from entrained formation water
and condensate.
Special attention must be given to the chemical and
physical properties of these contaminants. All reclamation
technology must be based on differences in these
properties in order to achieve good separation from glycol
that carries them in solution or suspension in the reclaimer
feed.

RECLAIMER PRINCIPLES
Two basic principles have been applied to glycol reclaiming.
The first is electro-dialysis. Since the glycols are nonpolar, the feed must be diluted with water to at least 30
WT% or more water to enable the process to operate
and transfer the chloride ion through the membrane in
exchange for hydroxyl ion. The product, chloride free
glycol, must be distilled to remove the excess water. In
this application careful cleaning of feed is absolutely
essential if the membranes are to remain operable. The
energy requirement, cleaning and maintenance cost for
this method is very high.
The second is vacuum distillation where heat and vacuum
are used to boil off all glycol and lighter components,

leaving as residue the salts, other heavy high boiling

point tars and degradation materials. This paper will be
devoted to requirement for complete glycol reclaimer
which employs vacuum distillation.
This process comprises three essential operations arranged
in the following sequence prior to reclaimer.
1- Removal of all solids. This step is accomplished through
a properly designed cartridge filter(s) in the glycol
regeneration skid.
2- Breaking of oil in glycol emulsions and removal of most
of aliphatic condensate. This step is accomplished
through a properly designed horizontal three phase
separator (AKA flash tank) in the glycol regeneration
skid.
3- Distilling of the light ends, water and organic acids.
This step is accomplished through a properly designed
glycol reboiler, still column, and reflux condenser in
the glycol regeneration skid.
The glycol reclamation is carried out on batch or continuous
basis; this depends on the amount of impurities added
to the glycols during the plant operation. The major
contributor of glycol fouling is soluble salts carried into
the glycol system. Therefore, gas dehydration by TEG
requires less frequent reclamation since very little soluble
salt is carried into the TEG dehydration, the presence of
acid gases and TEG degradation will determine how often
the total TEG solution should be reclaimed (batch); or if
the fouling of TEG is very severe due to any or combination
of above sources of contaminants, then a slip stream
(continuous) of TEG to be reclaimed.
Note: Generally the continuous TEG reclamation is carried
out only in those gas dehydration applications with high
acid gas content.
In MEG process for hydrate prevention (wet gas evacuation)
the presence of formation water salts, corrosion inhibitors,
surfactants, heavy hydrocarbon liquid, and if sour gas(ses)
are more commonly present; their accumulation in the
MEG solution will increase very rapidly; therefore, this
necessitates a slip stream (continuous) MEG reclamation.
This reclamation rate varies between 3% lean MEG
circulation for moderate salts accumulation up to 20% of
lean MEG circulation for heavy salts accumulation.

RECLAIMER DESIGN
The COMART designed reclaimer (please refer to figure
1) is based on feeding the slipstream of regenerated
contaminated glycol to the reclaimer with major equipment
comprising:
1- Vacuum Reboiler: The contaminated glycol enters
vacuum reboiler; where for TEG operation the normal
operating conditions of vacuum reboiler is maintained
at 50 to 60mm HG absolute pressure and 204C. For
MEG operation the normal operating conditions of
vacuum reboiler is maintained at 80 to 90mm HG
absolute pressure and 160C. The dissolved salts and
most of the other degradation materials have no
impact on the reclaimer vacuum reboiler duty (since
they do not vaporize and their additional heating
requirement for raising their temperature to the
operating temperature of vacuum reboiler is negligible).
The heating can be accomplished by direct fired,
electrical, or hot oil/steam reboiler.
2- Vacuum Pump: The vacuum is generally maintained
by liquid ring pump(s).

3- Vapour Condenser: The overhead vapours (reclaimed

glycol and water) are condensed by a vapour condenser
into an accumulator vessel. The condenser can be
aerial, liquid cooled, and in colder environment finned
pipe alone can accomplish the condensation.
4- Booster Pumps: The condensed vapours from
accumulator vessel are pumped back into the suction
of main glycol pump on the glycol regeneration skid
or to the lean glycol storage tank.
5- Brine/Degradation Materials Accumulator: The
accumulated salts and degradation materials are
periodically drained into a lower barrel below the
vacuum reboiler, from which they are discharged
(pumped) into waste storage vessel.
Notes:
A- Prior to sending the reclaimed glycol back to the suction of main
glycol pump on the glycol regeneration skid or to the lean glycol storage
tank, the pH of the reclaimed glycol should be in the range of 6.5 to
7.5, if it is outside this range then its pH should be adjusted with an
appropriate pH control chemical.
B- Disposal Of Waste: Correct disposal of effluent sludge produced by
reclaimer (i.e. salts, glycol degradation materials, high boiling point
hydrocarbons, sulfur compounds, etc.) must be considered for
environmental conditions with respect to location of disposal sites and
the plant location. Generally any solids settled in the bottom of the
transportation tank is deposited in a regulated hazardous land fill site.
The liquid mixture is incinerated by an authorized Hazardous Waste
Incinerator with electrostatic precipitator.The recovered ashes can be
sent as a non hazardous waste to any land fill.

CONCLUSION
The glycol reclaimers have been used for
numerous severe applications with great
results in saving for glycol losses, lower
maintenance, and meeting process requirement
continuously. It has been shown that with on-stream
reclaimer systems the glycol systems have not been shut
down for cleaning or repairs for several years. These
units have been designed and built as mobile trailer
mounted self contained systems for transportation with
small truck to different locations (Please see attached
photograph); or as a dedicated skid mounted plant in
one location. The same reclaimer can handle both MEG
and TEG (separately) on batch or continuous mode.
Few example cases are described below:
1- Coke oven gas dehydration (Indiana, USA) contained
high concentration of naphthalene, and high molecular
weight hydrocarbon, causing glycol to become very
viscous and difficult to flow through the dehydration
system and gas dehydration had to be stopped every
three weeks for cleaning and changing the glycol. Since
the installation of the reclaimer in 1984 no unscheduled
stoppage has occurred.
2- Sour gas dehydration (Texas, USA) contained high H2S
and CO2 acid gasses. Since the reclaimer started
running continuously the glycol losses and plant
equipment cleanup has been reduced below normal
standard.
3- Mobile glycol reclaimers (Pennsylvania, Ohio USA) were
used to clean stored contaminated glycol, or used on
operating plants. In these mobile units an atmospheric

reboiler was piggy backed on top of vacuum reboiler

for boiling off most of the Rich contaminated glycol
water and light hydrocarbons prior to entering the
vacuum reboiler.
4- Gas dehydration (Offshore Canada) the wet gas
evacuation contained high salt content resulting in
severe salt contamination in the equipment, in one
instance due to some excess water carryover the salt
content shut up to above 95000ppmw in glycol; with
reclaimer operating and the lean glycol feed containing
95000ppmw salt the reclaimed glycol salt content was
below 60ppmw.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The late L. S. Reid had worked in the development of
this process, portions of the information contained in this
paper have been drawn from his work.

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