Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 26 (2015) 1485e1490
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jngse
Sour gas reservoirs and sulfur-removal technologies: A collection of
published research (2009e2015)
1. Introduction
This article serves as the introduction and overview to the Jour-
nal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering's virtual special issue
(VSI) concerning Sour Gas Reservoirs and Sulfur- Removal Technolo-
gies, compiled in July 2015. This JNGSE VSI collects 35 articles
reporting diverse topics related to sour gases that were published
by Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering since the start of
2009. Each article included in the compilation represents a stand-
alone analysis and research on a relevant topic that has passed
the journal's rigorous peer-review editorial system. Collectively,
these articles provide key insight to the progress being made to-
wards better understanding of removal of sour gases and other
components in gas streams using different techniques, sour gas res-
ervoirs, and corrosion and safety issues in sour gas sweetening
plants.
The published articles compiled in this virtual special issue pro-
vide a useful synthesis of progress made in recent years in several
diverse research areas pertaining to sour gas. The articles compiled
are classied into eight distinct categories:
1. Sour gas reservoirs
2. Wellbore issues for sour gas reservoirs
3. Natural gas desulfurization by methyldiethanolamine (MDEA)
absorption
4. Natural gas desulfurization by Sulnol-M absorption
5. Natural gas desulfurization by other absorption liquids
6. Other natural gas desulfurization methods
7. Removal of components other than hydrogen sulde from sour
gas
8. Corrosion and safety issues for gas sweetening plants
Note that published articles relating to CO2 removal are not
included in this compilation as they have been addressed in the
recent JNGSE virtual special issues on gas hydrates (Wood, 2015a)
and CO2 handling and Carbon Capture Utilization and Sequestration
(CCUS) research (Wood, 2015b).
This virtual special issue should highlight to researchers JNGSE's
keen interest in topics concerning sour gas removal in gas process-
ing plants and in sour gas reservoirs, and the journal's willingness
to peer-review research articles on sour gas behavior and related
topics (e.g. gas sweetening plant optimization, impurities removal
from sour gas, and sour gas plant case studies), as they relate to nat-
ural gas, on an ongoing basis.
The brief summaries of the articles included in this virtual
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2015.08.022
1875-5100/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
special issue now follow, organized into the categories described
above.
2. Sour gas reservoirs
Guo et al. (JNGSE, 2015, 22, 371e376) investigated the prediction
of sulfur saturation based on non-Darcy ow. The effects of reser-
voir compaction, gas properties, the dependence of sulfur solubility
on pressure, and sulfur deposition on gas-well deliverability were
studied. They claimed that the rate of sulfur deposition was under-
estimated by Roberts' Model, and their modied model was more
accurate and practical in predicting sulfur deposition. Reservoir
compaction should be considered in sulfur deposition predictions
as it leads to a faster rate of sulfur deposition. On the other hand,
the effect of variation in gas properties on sulfur deposition was
directly attributed to the inuence of pressure change, which
should be calculated according to the corresponding pressures.
Also, it was found that the radius of damage caused by sulfur depo-
sition increased with increasing gas production rate and production
time. The analysis suggests that gas production rate dramatically
decreases as sulfur saturation increases.
Hu et al. (JNGSE, 2013, 11, 18e22) developed a reservoir damage
model for describing the change of pressure and production with
sulfur deposition considering non-Darcy ow. The glomeration
mechanism of precipitated sulfur in pores was discussed, and the
effect of irreducible water sulfur deposition was investigated. The
results indicated that when reservoir pressure was lower than the
critical pressure, a higher degree of saturation of irreducible water
might lead to more rapid pressure decline. Moreover, the velocity of
sulfur precipitation increased and the gas limited production time
became shorter when non-Darcy ow was considered. They also
found that irreducible water not only decreased the gas ow, but
also caused difculty in sulfur being carried by gas.
Hu et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 18, 31e38) proposed a model for
elemental sulfur solubility in various sour gas mixtures using a
database of experimental measurements. The calculation results
using the proposed model more accurately tted the experimental
results than calculations using the Roberts's solubility formula. This
was due to the fact that the experimental solubility data consid-
ering Roberts's model used sulfur dissolved in pure hydrogen sul-
de, but not in sour gas mixtures. It revealed that the new
developed model could be used for describing the solubility
changes with variations of temperatures and pressures more
accurately.
Kamari and Oyarhossein (JNGSE, 2012, 9, 11e15) conducted
1486 Z. Zhang, D.A. Wood / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 26 (2015) 1485e1490
experiments on the hydrate formation while producing from an Ira-
nian sour gas well. They obtained the hydrate formation tempera-
tures at different operating pressures (770, 600, 450, 330, 235 and
123 psia) after sampling the reservoir's produced uids from a
separator. The results were compared with previous correlations
proposed in previously published work. Analysis veried that the
correlation proposed by stergaard et al. (2000) was the best t
for this sour gas sample. The reason for this better t might be
because the effects of CO2 and N2 were taken into account in the
correlation of stergaard et al., while other correlations have only
considered a maximum of three parameters: pressure, temperature
and gas specic gravity. The results are helpful in determining the
safe and unsafe operating zones using PeT curves to avoid hydrate
formation conditions.
3. Wellbore issues for sour gas reservoirs
Long et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 21, 270e274) evaluated the sulde
stress corrosion cracking (SSC) issue using different anti-SSC casing
design methods. The basic principles of mitigating SSC in wellbore
casing design were discussed to minimize SSC initiation and
improve the integrity and service life of casing. It was recommen-
ded that additional axial stress should be considered for deter-
mining the maximum allowable tension load in anti-SSC casing
design, in order to guarantee that the casing grade is selected
with a greater safety margin. The design method described in this
paper could be used to guide casing design in sour gas wells.
4. Natural gas desulfurization by methyldiethanolamine
(MDEA) absorption
Abdulrahman and Sebastine (JNGSE, 2013, 14, 116e120) simu-
lated the prospective Khurmala (gas eld in the Kurdistan region
of Iraq) gas sweetening process by using the Aspen HYSYS commer-
cial software. The simulation work evaluated a range of amine gas
sweetening processes, including: DEA, MDEA and blends of MEA/
MDEA and DEA/MDEA. It achieved the highest acid gas removal
with a DEA solution. H2S concentration in the sweet gas stream
was about 4 ppm at (400 m3/h) amine circulation rate. Analysis
also considered some of the critical amine process factors for
each amine type, e.g., amine circulation rate and amine concentra-
tion. Furthermore, optimization runs indicated that the use of a 35%
DEA solution should deliver the best results.
Abukashabeh et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 19, 317e323) studied thermo-
physical properties for thermally degraded methyldiethanolamine
(MDEA) solutions. Density, viscosity and surface tension of samples
of fresh MDEA solutions, real lean MDEA solutions, and thermally
degraded MDEA solutions were measured at different tempera-
tures. The measured values were validated with literature data.
The obtained results were used to produce correlations for MDEA
solution density and viscosity as a function of initial amine concen-
tration, degradation time, and temperature. Increasing the degra-
dation time and temperature increased the density, viscosity and
surface tension. The predicted MDEA concentrations of real lean
amine samples were compared with the measured values through
acidebase titration. The relative deviation between the results of
titration and those predicted using the derived correlations ranged
from 3.5 to 7.5%.
Adib et al. (JNGSE, 2013, 14, 121e131) proposed a model to esti-
mate process output variables of an industrial natural gas sweet-
ening plant using the Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm.
The model was evaluated with process operating data from the
Hashemi Nejad natural gas renery in Khorasan, Iran. A set of 13
input/output plant variables each consisting of 145 data points
was used to train, optimize, and test the SVM model. Model
development, which consisted of training, optimization and
testing, was performed using randomly selected 80%, 10%, and
10% of available data, respectively. Modeling results were compared
with those obtained from an articial neural network ANN-based
model, developed using the same dataset. The results from the
SVM based model showed better agreement with operating plant
data compared to the ANN-based model. The minimum calculated
squared correlation coefcient for the estimated process variables
is 0.99. This veried that the SVM algorithm provides a reliable
and accurate estimation method for natural gas sweetening.
Alhseinat et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 17, 49e57) carried out experiments
on the foaming behavior of aqueous methyldiethanolamine
(MDEA) in the presence of various degradation products, and other
contaminants as additives, to gas sweetening solutions. The foam-
ing tendency of aqueous MDEA solutions was reported in terms of
foam volume. Foam stability was studied on the basis of the time
required for the last bubble to break. The effect of degradation
products and heavy and light dissolved organics on solution phys-
ical properties i.e. density, surface tension and viscosity were exam-
ined. The 2.5 wt% addition of propionic acid decreased the foam
volume by about 4% and the foam stability by about 7.14%, while
the heaver organic acids (C5eC7) increased foaming. All organic
acids increased the solution viscosity and density, and decreased
the solution's surface tension to various extents. Formaldehyde
increased the foaming tendency and enhanced the stability of the
foam in MDEA solution. Iron(II) sulde increased the foaming ten-
dency by about 39.7%, although it decreased the foam stability by
about 95.6%. The addition of both pentane and heptane decreased
the foaming tendency and stability of the 50 wt% MDEA solutions.
In addition a model was proposed to aid the prediction of foaming
and defoaming behavior of the contaminants in terms of bubble
radius, in order to provide a better understanding of the parametric
effects behind the foaming problem of aqueous MDEA solutions.
Alhseinat et al. (JNGSE, 2014a, 20, 241e249) predicted the
simultaneous solubility of H2S and CO2 in aqueous MDEA solutions.
They developed a new theoretical thermodynamic model based on
incorporating thermodynamic relationships that correlated the
equilibrium and solubility constants to the Gibbs free energy of re-
action, leading to an enhanced predictive capability of the model.
The non-ideality in the liquid phase was taken into account by us-
ing the Pitzer model to calculate the activity coefcients for all spe-
cies present in the liquid phase. The non-ideality in the gas phase
was taken into account by using the PR equation of state to calcu-
late the fugacity coefcient for all species present in the gas phase.
The developed model was then validated with literature data for
H2S and CO2 absorption. The effects of process temperature, pres-
sure, and pH on the H2S solubility in MDEA amine solutions were
evaluated. Also this model could be further developed to provide
a user-friendly program, able to give an accurate prediction of
acid gas solubility at actual process conditions, allowing the optimi-
zation of the process accordingly.
Alhseinat et al. (JNGSE, 2015, 26, 502e509) carried out a para-
metric study on removal of MDEA foam creators coupled with
foam characterization. The foaming tendency of aqueous MDEA so-
lution was reported in terms of foam volume. Foam stability was re-
ported on the basis of the time required for the last bubble to break.
The effect of process parameters such as time of foamate collection,
owrate of dispersion gas, initial liquid volume, and corrosion in-
hibitor concentration on foam fractionation performance was
investigated. Surface tension of collected samples from bulk liquid,
before and after foaming, as well as from foamate, was measured
and correlated with the separation efciency. It was found that
foaming was capable for separating and concentrating corrosion in-
hibitor into the foamate. The added corrosion inhibitor increased
the foam breaking time and volume. Increasing amine volume at
 Z. Zhang, D.A. Wood / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 26 (2015) 1485e1490
the same gas owrate decreased the contaminants' separation ef-
ciency. The maximum separation occurred at gas owrate of 1.0 L/
min. The observations of this study showed that foam fractionation
could be used effectively to remove surface-active contaminates
from MDEA amine solutions; however, operating conditions should
be selected carefully.
Al-Lagtah et al. (JNGSE, 2015, 26, 367e381) evaluated the per-
formance improvement of Lekhwair natural gas sweetening plant
using simulation and sensitivity analysis were carried out using
Aspen HYSYS v7.3 commercial software. This study also reviewed
the current operation of an existing plant (Lekhwair plant, Oman)
considering the main operating parameters (i.e., lean amine circu-
lation ow rate, temperature and concentration) and proposed
some modications to the existing plant to increase its protability
and sustainability. The operating capacities of some equipment
were reviewed to assess the possibility of changing the operating
parameters along with investigating the occurrence of common
operational problems like foaming. Two modications (conven-
tional split-loop and modied split-loop) were simulated and dis-
cussed. A comparison between them and the current process
were carried out in terms of protability and sustainability. The
conventional split-loop was found to save up to 50% of the current
operating expenses for a mere 175,000 increase in capital invest-
ment, and a penalty of 1.0 ppm of H2S concentration in the sweet
gas, which was still well below the pipeline gas specication.
Finally, a sulfur recovery process was proposed to make the plant
more sustainable and environmentally friendly along with propos-
ing two modications to the conventional sulfur recovery process.
Even though the conventional and the proposed modied sulfur re-
covery processes were not economically protable, the modied
sulfur recovery process was more sustainable as its carbon foot-
print is lower than the conventional process.
Banat et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 16, 1e7) investigated theoretically a
gas sweetening unit with MDEA solution using the commercially-
available process simulator ProMax. They found that the unit
with highest value of exergy destruction was the absorber
(3 MW) followed by the sweet gas air cooler (2.7 MW) and the
asher unit (2.2 MW). The energy and exergy efciencies deter-
mined indicated that absorber was the most efcient process
with energy and exergy efciencies of about 94% and 98%, respec-
tively. The asher, air coolers and pressure recovery turbine were
determined to be the under-performing components with exergy
efciencies of 27%, 24% and 31%, respectively. A further breakdown
of exergy losses revealed that the chemical exergy losses are much
higher than the physical exergy losses, contributing around 94% of
the total exergy losses and, therefore, chemical exergy should be of
more concern rather than physical exergy.
Fouad and Berrouk (JNGSE, 2013, 11, 12e17) investigated the use
of amine solvents that consist of two tertiary amines, namely meth-
yldiethanolamine (MDEA) and triethanolamine (TEA). Results
showed that up to 3.0% reduction in a unit's running cost can be ob-
tained using the mixture (40 wt% MDEA 5 wt% TEA) while
meeting the sweet gas specications in terms of H2S and CO2 con-
centrations. The lean amine loading was xed at a value of 0.005.
Results for the (40 wt% MDEA 5 wt% TEA) mixture were
compared to the results of the standardized (45 wt% MDEA) solvent
used in the Habshan gas processing plant (UAE) and other possible
primary/tertiary and secondary/tertiary amine mixtures. This
reduction in cost was achieved through a decrease in the plant
raw materials cost and in both regenerator, reboiler and trim cooler
energy requirements.
Ghanbarabadi and Zad Gohari (JNGSE, 2014, 20, 208e213) simu-
lated the gas sweetening unit of Sarakhs renery (Iran) using Aspen
HYSYS commercially-available software with MDEA aqueous sol-
vent to optimize the concentration, MDEA solvent's ow stream,
1487
thermal load of the restoration unit and other processing condi-
tions. They investigated the effect of temperature, ow stream
and concentration of input solvent on the contactor and other pro-
cessing units. The simulation results revealed that the optimum
performance of MDEA solvent was 45e50 wt% concentration at
55e63  C.
Hamzehie et al. (JNGSE, 2015, 24, 106e114) proposed a model
based on an articial neural network (ANN) to predict the solubility
of acid gases (H2S and CO2) in 32 commonly single and mixed
amine, and ionic liquid (IL) solutions over a wide ranges of oper-
ating conditions. Temperature, partial pressure of acid gases, over-
all mass concentration, apparent molecular weight, critical
temperature and critical pressure of solutions were chosen as input
variables for the developed network. A collection of 733 experi-
mental data points for H2S solubility (including train, test and vali-
dation data points) were gathered from the literature to develop
the network. The best parameters of the developed ANN containing
the number of neurons, numbers of hidden layers and the transfer
function were acquired using these data points. The extrapolation
capability of the network was tested with an extra data set (114
data points for CO2 solubility). The results showed that the devel-
oped ANN model had the ability to estimate accurately the solubi-
lity of acid gases in different solutions with Mean Relative Error
(MRE) value of 3.104 and correlation coefcient (R2) of 0.997.
Muhammad and Gadelhak (JNGSE, 2014, 17, 119e130) estimated
the capital and operating costs accompanying the scale up of an
amine sweetening process to treat high acid gas contents in sour
natural gas (25 MMSCFD, 1.7 mol% H2S and 4.13 mol% CO2). The ef-
fects of amine circulation rate, lean amine temperature, re-boiler
temperature and amine concentration were investigated. The pro-
cess was scaled-up to handle a sour gas with up to 25 mol% CO2 and
3 mol% H2S by scaling up the amine circulation rate. The capital and
operating costs showed a linear relationship with the increase of
CO2 percentage in natural gas. Meanwhile, the utility requirements,
regenerator column diameter, the surface area of the re-boiler, the
lean-rich amine heat exchanger and the lean amine cooler demon-
strated a strong positive linear correlation. For various acid gas par-
tial pressures the capital and operating costs were tted to a second
order polynomial function with R2 > 0.97.
Pal et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 21, 1043e1047) conducted experiments
on the thermal degradation of methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) un-
der different operating conditions. Effects of temperature and pres-
sure were observed to understand the kinetics of MDEA
degradation as well as formation of different organic degraded
products. Heat stable salts (HSS) and various organic degradation
products were identied with increasing concentration as degrada-
tion time increased. A microwave digester and a high pressure
reactor were used to study the thermal degradation with fresh
3.781 M MDEA loaded with sour gas (i.e., H2S 38 ppm and RSH
40 ppm) at different temperatures and pressures. The results sug-
gested that initial thermal degradation of fresh MDEA showed the
highest formation of HSS, which were ranked as
glycolate > acetate > formate using the microwave digester. Higher
formation rates of the acetate and the glycolate were obtained at a
higher pressure of 2.5 bars, whereas the formation rate of the
formate obtained at 2.5 bars was lower than that obtained at
2.0 bars. The degraded products like ethylenediamine, bicine, bis(h-
ydroxyethyl) piperazine (bHEP) etc. were observed with increasing
concentration using GCeMS and DSA-TOF analysis in a gas sweet-
ening unit. The analysis provides greater understanding of MDEA
degradation using different types of reactor, degradation kinetics
and degradation products.
Pal et al. (JNGSE, 2015, 24, 124e131) studied the role of aqueous
methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) as a solvent in a natural gas sweet-
ening unit. The major hydrocarbons found in the feed natural gas
1488 Z. Zhang, D.A. Wood / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 26 (2015) 1485e1490
were analyzed using gas chromatography mass spectrometry
(GCeMS). Different types of organic and inorganic species were
found as contaminants in the lean MDEA solvent. In comparison
to inorganic anion contaminants, organic heat stable salts such as
acetate (2806 ppm) and propionate (1614 ppm) were present in
much higher concentrations. The UVeVis spectrophotometer
conrmed the presence of these anions in almost the same concen-
trations in lean MDEA solvent. Heavy metal ions such as lead
(1.009 ppm) and iron (0.967 ppm) determined by ICP-OES analysis
were also found in substantial amounts in the lean MDEA solvents
of natural gas sweetening units obtained from GASCO Company
(Abu Dhabi). These organic thermally degraded products generated
in lean MDEA samples of gas sweetening units were considered to
be another major contaminant. Moreover, the thermal degradation
experiment was compared with H2S and both H2S/CO2 to obtain
similar compounds with varying concentration.
Qiu et al. (2014) studied a novel methyldiethanolamine (MDEA)
modied process for high-sulfur gas sweetening. The inuence of
operating conditions on gas sweetening efciency and economic
benets were evaluated by using process simulation and optimiza-
tion. The results showed that the maximization of the treated gas
yield should be selected as the optimization objective function for
gas sweetening rather than the minimization of the operating costs.
This enabled improvement of the economic efciency of the gas
processing unit. On the other hand, improving absorption pressure
(AP) and tray number signicantly reduced the circulation rate. En-
ergy and operating costs reached their minimum value, when the
AP simultaneously was at its maximum value.
Rahimpour et al. (JNGSE, 2013, 15, 127e137) developed a math-
ematical model for a natural gas sweetening process using a corru-
gated packed-bed column based on the computational uid
dynamics (CFD) concept. 2D mass and energy transfer equations,
incorporating chemical reactions between amines and acid gases,
were developed for moving liquid and gas in a cylindrical coordi-
nate system for the channels produced from counter course assem-
bly of the corrugated sheets. Solution to the governing equations
based on mass and energy conservation concepts provided temper-
ature and concentration distributions along the bed height and
across the gas and reacting liquid lm. It was revealed that the
structured-packed column showed a better performance for ab-
sorption of acid gases in comparison with a randomly-packed col-
umn of equal height and diameter. The results led to the
conclusion that due to instantaneous reaction between hydrogen
sulde and amine, the slope of the concentration prole of H2S in
the liquid lm was greater than that of CO2. MDEA seemed to
have the most selective solution for absorption of H2S and MEA
showed better performance for absorption of CO2 in comparison
with DEA. More generally, the selectivity for absorption of CO2
could be intensied, if necessary, in a case of interest.
Santo and Rameshni (JNGSE, 2014, 18, 137e148) designed a sour
gas eld development considering particular proprietary schemes
available and features to handle a wide range of operating cases
in order to maintain a stable operation while meeting the required
performance objectives. They discussed the design features of the
units and reasons why they were selected, and the options that
they considered when designing a specic unit, including the sol-
vent evaluation and selection, the impact of H2S/CO2 ratio on the
Acid Gas Removal Unit (AGRU) and the Sulfur Recovery Units
(SRU) design, the selected optimum scheme of the SRU, and the
Tail Gas Treating Units (TGU) to meet the performance guarantees
for all 10 cases considered, including a comparison of the operating
costs and the capital costs. It was concluded that the formulated
chemical solvent MDEA was more effective than hybrid solvents.
In addition, the tail gas absorber could be designed with a higher
rich amine loading to achieve better results.
Younas and Banat (JNGSE, 2014, 18, 247e253) applied the
commercially-available ProMax simulation model to determine
the sensitivity of a gas sweetening process. Variables affecting ab-
sorption of acid gases, directly and indirectly, were tested. It was
determined that the process can tolerate up to 4% CO2 and 1%
H2S in the feed gas and it could operate around a large range of
designed feed gas capacities, i.e., 50e130%. The most suitable feed
gas temperature was determined to be 40e45  C. The optimum
amine concentration and ow were found to be closer to the design
values of 45% and 360 m3/h, respectively. The behavior of the pa-
rameters affecting the absorption process indirectly, such as:
reboiler operating pressure, rich amine temperature, reux ratio
and boilup ratio were also discussed. Analysis suggested that the
reboiler operating temperature should be held below 130  C at
all times to minimize amine degradation. The reux and boilup ra-
tios could also be manipulated to achieve specic desired opera-
tional results.
5. Natural gas desulfurization by Sulnol-M absorption
Angaji et al. (JNGSE, 2013, 15, 22e26) conducted optimization
analysis of Sulfolane concentration in proposing the use of
Sulnol-M solvent instead of MDEA solvent in the Sarakhs renery
(Iran). They examined the performance of a mixture of physical and
chemical solvents in the gas treatment process. This study evalu-
ated the performance of various concentrations of Sulfolane in
the Sulnol-M solvent in this gas renery, which led to the conclu-
sion that a solvent of composition 40.2 wt% Sulfolane, 21.2 wt% H2O,
and 37.7 wt% MDEA should be used in the liquid mixture of
Sulnol-M. The analysis highlighted the possibility of adjusting
the concentrations of water, Sulfolane and MDEA to decrease the
energy required for solvent restoration, and to control the invest-
ment cost consistent with the process conditions. The results led
to the conclusion that the replacement of Sulnol-M solvent
resulted in better performance and more favorable economics
compared to the solvent composition currently used in the Sarakhs
renery, and other amine solvents evaluated.
Asil and Shahsavand (JNGSE, 2014, 21, 791e804) used combina-
tions of Aspen-HYSYS software and two in-house articial neural
networks (ANN, namely, Regularization and stabilized multilayer
perceptron networks) to compare the acid gas enrichment (AGE)
capability of sulnol-M (sulfolane MDEA) solvent at optimal con-
centration with traditional MDEA solutions for use in a conven-
tional gas treating unit (GTU). The simulation results indicated
that the optimal concentration of Sulnol-M aqueous solution
(i.e., containing 37 wt% Sulfolane, 45 wt% MDEA and 18 wt% H2O)
completely eliminated toluene and ethylbenzene from the (Sulfur
Recovery Units) SRU feed stream while removing 80% of benzene
entering the GTU process. Furthermore, mole fraction of H2S in
the SRU feed stream increased from the conventional 33.48 mol%
to over 57 mol%. The increased H2S selectivity of the optimal
sulnol-M aqueous solution elevated the CO2 slippage through to
the sweet gas stream by about 4.5 mol%, which was still below
the permissible threshold.
Ghanbarabadi and Khoshandam (JNGSE, 2015, 22, 415e420)
simulated the removal of acid gases (CO2, H2S) and sulfur com-
pounds (methyl and ethyl mercaptans, dimethyl-sulde, COS)
with mixed solvent Sulnol (Sulfolane MDEA H2O) and DGA,
MDEA AMP solvents and compare their performance with the
presently-used solvent, MDEA. The objective was to establish the
feasibility of utilizing Sulnol-M solvent to replace the aqueous
amine solvent in the gas sweetening unit of Ilam gas renery
(Iran). The results showed that more than 30e40% of mercaptans,
together with sour gas was absorbed with Sulnol-M solvent at a
lower ow rate and consuming considerably less energy (i.e.,
 Z. Zhang, D.A. Wood / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 26 (2015) 1485e1490
10e25% less) in solvent regeneration. Furthermore, very little waste
of solvent was observed compared with other amine solvents (i.e.,
MDEA AMP, DGA, MDEA). The results led to the conclusions that
many of the process parameters evaluated were controlled more
easily with the compositional characteristics of the Sulnol-M
compound than with other amine solvents, and these benets are
also accompanied by energy and economic saving in different as-
pects of mercaptan and acid gas absorption.
6. Natural gas desulfurization by other absorption liquids
Azizkhani et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 21, 26e39) developed an optimi-
zation model for the performance of a gas sweetening plant using
negative correlation learning (NCL) and a genetic algorithm (GA)
to create an ensemble neural network (ENN). Diethanolamine
(DEA) was used as the chemical solvent. In this approach the
component neural networks (CNNs) of ENN were trained simulta-
neously. The resulting CNNs negatively correlated the penalty
terms in their objective functions. The predicted output was ob-
tained by using the weighted averages of the outputs of the
CNNs. The GA participated in the training of CNNs and assigned
optimized weights to each trained CNN in the ensemble. The pro-
posed method was tested in a case study involving the gas treat-
ment plant (GTP) of the AMMAK project in the Ahwaz onshore
eld in Iran. The results of the proposed model were shown to be
in good agreement with the experimental data derived from the
GTP. In addition, the proposed method outperformed single neural
network and some other network ensemble techniques.
Behroozsarand and Shaei (JNGSE, 2010, 2, 284e292) studied
the optimal control of an amine plant using the multi-objective ge-
netic algorithm concept in conjunction with a proportional-
integral-derivative (PID) controller. The tuning of the PID control-
lers was achieved by minimizing two objective functions (Over-
shoot and IAE) through the Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic
Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). An amine solution of DEA was used for
the gas sweetening. Simulation results showed that NSGA-II tuning
method had excellent ability in optimal control of all subunits of
amine plant, such as the absorption and regeneration towers.
Mohebi et al. (JNGSE, 2009, 1, 195e204) applied a simulation
model to evaluate a sour gas membrane-absorption system. The
hollow ber membrane contactor and amine solution were used
for separation of CO2 and H2S from CO2/H2S/CH4 gas mixture.
Sour gas and diethanolamine (DEA) solution were fed into the shell
and ber respectively. CO2 and H2S reacted with the amine solu-
tion. Reaction mechanisms and equations for three phases of gas,
liquid, and membrane were needed for modeling of this system.
MATLAB software was used to conduct the simulations. The results
showed that concentrations of CO2 and H2S decreased at the begin-
ning of the ber and that the liquid phase was controlling phase.
Furthermore, the result showed that pressure increase had a posi-
tive effect on separation of the species.
7. Other natural gas desulfurization methods
Moaseri et al. (JNGSE, 2013, 12, 34e42) performed experiments
and a techno-economical evaluation of Khangiran sour natural gas
condensate desulfurization process (Iran), considering different
scenarios. The effects of reagent, temperature, volume ratio, and
concentration were examined. The oxidative desulfurization pro-
cess delivered the best results being able to decrease the total sulfur
content from 8500 ppm to less than 700 ppm, by eliminating all
hydrogen sulde and mercaptans, and severely reducing other
heavy sulfur-bearing compounds. The odor of the treated conden-
sate was completely eliminated due to removal of all volatile sulfur
components. The preliminary techno-economic evaluation of an
1489
industrial scale process was performed based on the experimental
results. The results indicated that the proposed process was bene-
cial from both nancial and environmental standpoints.
8. Removal of components other than hydrogen sulde from
sour gas
Aleghafouri et al. (JNGSE, 2015, 22, 618e624) investigated ben-
zene, toluene, ethylbenzene and metaxylene (BTEX) removal from
aqueous solution of diethanolamine (DEA) experimentally and
theoretically. The Langmuir, Freundlich and Sips isotherm models
were used to describe the equilibrium data. The accuracy of the re-
sults obtained from the adsorption isotherm models was compared
and the values for the regressed parameters reported. The results
showed that the Freundlich and Sips isotherms had better agree-
ment with the experimental data than Langmuir isotherm for all
activated carbon (AC) samples. According to the adsorption
isotherm curves obtained from experiments, the amount of adsorp-
tion of metaxylene, ethylbenzene, toluene and benzene increased.
In addition, a mathematical model was proposed for describing
the BTEX transfer between the amine solution and solid particles.
The breakthrough predicted by the proposed model was compared
with the experimental results and a satisfactory agreement was
observed between them.
Rashidi et al. (JNGSE, 2015, 25, 103e109) synthesized a carbon
nanotube-supported metallo-carboxyporphyrin catalyst for
mercaptan removal from a gas stream in a xed bed reactor. The
nano catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), eld-
emission scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), and Fourier trans-
form infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The effects on performance of
important operating parameters including temperature, gas hourly
space velocity (GHSV), and loading (%) were investigated. The re-
sults conrmed that the mercaptan concentrations in the output
gas ow could be decreased from 16,800 ppm to less than
10 ppm under optimized conditions by (Fe)TCPP-MWCNTs-NH2
as nanocatalyst.
Tohidi et al. (JNGSE, 2015, 26, 758e769) developed a more ef-
cient and economical cyclic adsorption process for mercaptan
removal from natural gas (NG) to reduce mercaptan content to
less than 10 ppm and meet the environmental rules. Continuous
sulfur removal was studied for the NG feed stream, with pressure
of 6.8 MPa, ow rate of 2850 Nm3/hr and molar composition of
95.98% methane, 0.00182% water vapor, 1% carbon dioxide,
0.0134% mercaptan and 3% heavier hydrocarbons (C3). The pro-
posed process of Pressure Vacuum Swing Adsorption (PVSA) was
designed and simulated as a more efcient alternative process
compared to the current industrial PressureeTemperature Swing
Adsorption (PTSA). In this work, an improved PVSA process was
simulated with sequences of bed pressurization, adsorption, equal-
ization, blow down, bed regeneration by vacuum and purge by
product, in each process cycle. Vacuum conditions of 10 KPa with
the molar purge/feed ratio of 0.06 and temperature of 350 K were
required for appropriate bed regeneration from adsorbed
mercaptan to approach a continuous cyclic steady condition. Com-
parison between PVSA and PTSA, for the same feed characteristics,
same packed columns and adsorption operating conditions,
revealed that the PVSA process, with less cycle time than PTSA,
could achieve the same product purity with 94.8% recovery and
3.90 mol/(kg$day) productivity, whereas PTSA achieved recovery
of only 74.04% and productivity of 2.79 mol/(kg$day). At the same
time, operating with PVSA, instead of the PTSA process, reduced
operating cost by 17%.
1490 Z. Zhang, D.A. Wood / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 26 (2015) 1485e1490
9. Corrosion and safety issues for gas sweetening plants
Alaei et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 20, 271e284) observed the implemen-
tation of hazard and operability (HAZOP) analysis applied to identify
all the dangerous deviations, potential hazards, and operational
problems possibly associated the Claus reaction furnace package,
blower, and heat exchanger equipment in a sulfur recovery unit
(SRU). This allowed a signicant reduction in implementation costs,
where the expected saving from risk reduction was high. The ef-
ciency of the SRU was strongly associated with the performance of
those aforementioned components. It is noteworthy that these com-
ponents are the most important parts of the SRU. The analysis led to
recommendation concerning risk ranking in such plants. In addi-
tion, cause and effect diagrams for the Claus burner in start-up/
heating and fuel gas/sour gas modes were presented.
Davoudi et al. (JNGSE, 2014, 19, 116e124) performed experi-
ments to establish the effects of impurities on thermal degradation
and corrosivity of amine solutions in a sour gas sweetening plant.
The effects of heat stable salt on pressure drop, pressure drop on
steam consumption, MEG contamination of the solvent on boil up
temperature, H2S loading, heat stable salts and chloride on corro-
sion rates were investigated. The results indicated that the presence
of MEG in an aqueous phase affected the thermal degradation tem-
perature of the solution. It also changed the solution concentration
and the acid gas loading. Analysis also suggested that acetate anion
could be carried over in the system from upstream process units.
10. Ongoing sour gas research
JNGSE also has manuscripts under review in July 2015, not
included in this virtual special issue, addressing the following
sour gas and gas contaminant topics:
 Integrated mathematical modeling for prediction of rich CO2
absorption in structured packed column at elevated pressure
conditions;
 Effects of a cooler's operating parameters on the performance of
CO2 absorption processes using alkanolamine solutions;
 Refrigeration cycles in low-temperature distillation processes
for the purication of natural gas;
 Modeling of nitrogen separation from natural gas through
nanoporous carbon membranes;
 Modeling of PES/modied Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube
(MWCNT) mixed matrix membranes performance for CO2/CH4
separation using articial neural network and ANFIS;
 Natural gas sweetening using PU-zeolite X nanocomposite
membranes;
 Prediction of carbon dioxide solubility in amino acid salt solu-
tions as absorbents using articial neural network and Desh-
mukheMather models;
 The activity loss modeling for the catalytic reactor of a sulfur
recovery unit in South Pars Gas Complex (SPGC) 3rd Renery
based on percolation theory;
 Feasibility of supersonic separation for deep natural gas
sweetening using computational uid dynamics: Early design;
 Process optimization of the gas sweetening unit to increase a
sulfur recovery unit's performance.
The diversity of above topics highlights the varied nature of
ongoing research and the multiple ways in which sour gas removal
methods and production from sour gas reservoirs could potentially
be improved through a better understanding of the complex pro-
cesses involved and innovative applications.
The Journal of Natural Gas Science & Engineering has an ongoing
interest in topics concerning sour gas that are relevant to natural
gas, and is keen to be given the opportunity to review manuscripts
addressing original research and case studies pertaining to such
topics. We hope the articles presented in this compilation will
not only provide you with ideas to develop your own ongoing
research applications, but also inspire you to submit manuscripts
of your current and future original research work to this journal.
For detailed references pertaining to the JNGSE-published arti-
cles summarized above please see the main VSI document
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2015.08.006).
References
Wood, D.A., 2015a. Gas hydrate research advances steadily on multiple fronts: a
collection of published research (2009 - 2015). J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 24,
A1eA8.
Wood, D.A., 2015b. Carbon dioxide (CO2) handling and carbon capture utilization
and sequestration (CCUS) research relevant to natural gas: A collection of pub-
lished research (2009-2015). J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 25, A1eA9.
Zhang, Z., Wood, D.A., 2015. Virtual special issue: sour gas reservoirs and sulfur-
removal technologies: a collection of published research (2009 to 2015). J.Nat.
Gas Sci. 26, 1506e1507.
Zhien Zhang, Editorial Supervisor
Journal of Natural Gas Science & Engineering, College of Power
Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
E-mail address: zhienzhang@hotmail.com.
Dr. David A. Wood, Editor-in-Chief*
Journal of Natural Gas Science & Engineering, DWA Energy Limited,
Lincoln, United Kingdom
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: dw@dwasolutions.com (D.A. Wood).
Available online 12 August 2015