Impact of thermophysical properties research on acid gas injection process design

Abstract

Stricter regulations and increased environmental concerns are making the previously common practice of flaring acid gas less attractive. Producers are being forced to find alternative methods to deal with this unwanted by-product. Acid gas injection has quickly become the method of choice for disposal, especially for small producers. Presented in this paper is a brief overview of the acid gas injection process. Included in this discussion is a description of what physical property and phase equilibria data are required and why. In addition, some new experimental data for the water content and density of sour gas mixtures are presented. These data are useful for checking the validity of the correlations used in the design of an acid gas injection scheme. In addition, such data are useful for optimizing the interaction parameters in the thermodynamic models employed to calculate such properties.