Experimental investigations on the phase behavior of the aromatic mixtures regarding the performance enhancement of natural gas dehydration processes in petroleum industry

The phase behavior of ternary systems in three-phase separator including benzene-heptane-water and toluene-heptane-water are investigated at 298.15 K and 308.15 K. It is shown that the water solubility in hydrocarbon phase and the benzene and toluene solubilities in aqueous phase decrease considerably with increasing n-heptane concentration. Moreover, the discarded water phase from three-phase separator to the environment in azeotropic regeneration process is less contaminated by aromatic compounds (BTEX) in comparison with the one in the traditional dehydration process. It is shown that the n-heptane can be used as a stripping medium in the azeotropic regeneration process to achieve less than 1% water in the TEG solvent employed for natural gas dehydration process of gas refining plants.