Abstract
Natural gas, being produced from gas fields around the globe, along with a large number of other harmful substances (CO2, H2S, RSH, COS, etc.), often contains mercury. Mercury’s potentially harmful effect on humans and on the ecological system as a whole as well as the risk regarding mercury’s corrosive effects to the very sophisticated and expensive process material, equipment and catalysts is making its removal an imperative.
The frequently applied procedure to remove mercury as an impurity and environment pollutant from process streams utilizes adsorption on a fixed bed consisting of sulfur impregnated activated carbon.
This paper deals with data, results and more than seven years of practical field experience obtained by research of mercury removal unit efficiency during production and enhancement of natural gas at Molve, Croatia. Paper details the operating implications of handling and processing natural gas containing mercury, showing the results of the innovative approach in the process control, resulting in safety reliability and process efficiency improvements by plant modification due to change of gas flow direction.
