Gas separators are mandatory equipment installed in the process lines at natural gas recovery and storage facilities, oil-and-gas production, processing, and chemical plants.
They perform a function of natural and associated petroleum gas preliminary cleaning of mechanical impurities, condensate, oil, and condensed moisture before processing or transportation via gas mains. Gas separators are also part of crude oil and gas pretreatment plants configuration, gas purification units, and water discharge systems.
Gas separators have configurations of vertical or horizontal cylindrical vessels with elliptical bottoms. Irrespective of configuration, they are erected on the ground on support legs or support posts.
The removal of liquid traces, hydrocarbon condensate, and mechanical impurities is performed by the following separator types:
Gravity gas separators. Their functioning is based on the principle of weight difference between foreign matter inclusions and the gas. Inside the unit, the velocity of the stream decelerates to the value at which condensate and mechanical impurities precipitate.
Inertial gas separators. They remove undesirable particles by an acute change in the flowing gas direction. At that, heavier than the gas particles are separated by impingement onto the surfaces of retainers.
Mesh gas separators. This type of separators is used for final purification of gas before its transportation or pumping into gas storage facilities. It is a three-section vessel. The flow is fed into the middle section where it passes through a coagulant and fine-mesh filter. After that, the prepared for further transit or storage gas flows into the upper section and the precipitate – into the bottom one.
Centrifugal gas separators. Such separators are used for deep purification of any types of gas: commercial-grade gas, transported gas or recovered gas. The separation of impurities in this type of apparatuses is performed by means of a vortex movement of medium in the chamber.
Combined type gas separators. These apparatuses combine the elements of design and functional features of different types of gas separators.