Natural gas in its raw form, when extracted from under earth’s crust, is full of contaminants. It goes through a series of filtration stages to remove solid and liquid impurities. The filter separator plays a vital role in the natural gas filtration process. It is a complete system created to remove the impurities from liquid-free natural gas streams.
The filter separators may be available in single or double boot configurations, and they contain one-micron filter elements used to remove dust, rust, and traces of small particles. The separators are available in different sizes to handle varying gas capacities.
The highest quality filter separators are capable of filtering out the finest particles as small as 0.3 microns size. A typical natural gas filter separator will have the following features:
- Liquid level controller
- Lifting lugs
- Pressure relief valve
- Pressure indicator
- High or low pressure-regulator
- Instrument gas header
- Temperature indicator connection
- Instrument gas drip-pot
- Pressure safety valve
What are the different stages?
As the raw natural gas passes through the unit, the preliminary filter separator in the first section removes the solid particles and turns any liquid elements into large droplets. The flow of the stream should be distributed uniformly to enable higher separation efficiency.
In the second part of filtration, the vane mist extractor or wire mesh retains the liquid droplets. This helps in removing particles size 2 microns and larger from the resulting stream. It is recommended to use internal components made of stainless steel material so that they do not cause oxide contamination later on.
The main standard unit includes one or two liquid boots that accumulate the heavy and large liquid droplets separated from the natural gas stream. There needs to be an outlet at the bottom of the vessel for the liquid drops to escape.
How does it work?
When the impure wet gas enters the pipe, a large amount of liquid contaminants come out of the gas stream. The risers help in evenly distributing the gas through the first stage of filtration. The gas then passes through the cartridges where the finer contaminants are captured and removed. The cartridges serve to combine the fine liquid contaminants within the gas stream before the second level of filtration where the large droplets of liquid impurities are removed, and the purified dry gas exits the filtration unit.
Where to look for Natural Gas Filter Separator?
Advanz Industrial Canada offers high quality and reliable natural gas separators: https://advanz.ca/natural-gas-filtration/separators/. The stream of gas is forcefully passed through the separators using different physical mechanisms such as deflection plates, baffles, vane pack, and mesh pad, to remove droplets and aerosols.
When buying separators, some of the main factors that need to be taken into account are configurations, connections, and proper size. This results in optimal performance of the natural gas filter separator for different operating conditions depending upon your project requirements.
Advanz offers separator vessels in both horizontal and vertical design. It mainly depends on the area where the unit will be installed.
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