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High-Pressure Economical Process for Treating Natural Gas--TDA Research, Inc., 12345 West 52nd Avenue, Wheat Ridge, CO  80033-1916;              303-940-2300, www.tda.com 

Dr. Girish Srinivas, Principal Investigator, gsrinvas@tda.com 

Mr. John D. Wright, Business Official, jdwright@tda.com 

DOE Grant No.  DE-FG02-03ER83794

Amount:  $750,000

The cost of sulfur removal from natural gas and petroleum has been estimated to be more than $5 billion/year.  For sulfur recovery plants in the low-to-medium tons of sulfur per day range, the operating costs of existing liquid phase processes become prohibitive.  In particular, the scaled-down combination of the amine+Claus+SCOT processes has very high capital costs.  This project will develop a new lower-cost process, DirectTreat, for removing sulfur from natural gas streams.  DirectTreat is projected to have lower capital and operating costs than either amine+Claus+SCOT or liquid redox process for small-to-mid sized sulfur recovery plants.  In association with several companies in the natural gas and sulfur recovery industries, Phase I optimized a catalyst for the DirectTreat process, conducted an economic analysis, and demonstrated the feasibility of the technology.  In Phase II, a series of high pressure natural gas desulfurization tests will be conducted.  The best catalyst will then be subjected to lifetime testing at high pressure.  In a field test, the catalyst will be used to treat a slip stream of high pressure natural gas at a gas plant.  Finally, an economic analysis will be done to compare DirectTreat with current sulfur recovery technologies. 

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by awardee:  The DirectTreat process should offer the gas producer and petroleum refiner a much-lower-cost alternative to amine+Claus+SCOT for intermediate-sized sulfur recovery plants.  For gas producers, the much lower capital and operating costs should allow the marketing of gas that would otherwise be left in the ground.