Energy and Economic Analysis of a New Low-Temperature Distillation Process for the Upgrading of High-CO2 Content Natural Gas Streams

An energy and economic analysis on a new distillation process for the upgrading of high-CO2 content natural gas streams has been carried out. The process has been optimized by means of a feed splitting technique to minimize the energy requirements. The performances of the process have been compared to the ones of a traditional MDEA scrubbing process in terms of energy expenses. The cost of energy has been quantified to build up a merit index function, which allows one to determine the trade-off between the two technologies as a function of the CO2 and H2S content in the feed gas and the geographic area where the gas reserve is located. The results have been discussed on the basis of the cost of energy in different geographic areas, showing the benefits (in terms of energy and operating costs savings) of a low-temperature distillation process when the CO2 content in the natural gas streams is high.