A review on mercury in natural gas and its condensate: Accurate characterization and efficient control technologies for total and speciated mercury

• Published in: Fuel (Guildford) Vol. 355; p. 129526
• Main Authors: Wang, Jiaxin, Liu, Ying, Wang, Tao, Serageldin, Mohamed A, Pan, Wei-Ping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2024
• Subjects: Condensate; Determination; Mercury speciation; Natural gas; Removal; Removal; Condensate; Determination; Mercury speciation; Natural gas
• ISSN: 0016-2361; 1873-7153
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2023.129526

•Review the pretreatment of natural gas and condensates before Hg detection.•The detection techniques of total mercury and speciated mercury were summarized.•Focus on the adsorbent's acid gas resistance and mercury adsorption selectivity.•Appropriate sampling process and regenerable adsorbents were put forward. The requirement to characterize and remove mercury from natural gas and its condensate span a wide range of subject fields, from environmental science and analytical chemistry to material design and chemical engineering. The first part of this review discusses the mercury species and exposure limits in natural gas and gas condensate. In the second and third parts, the analytical techniques and pretreatment steps for analyzing mercury in natural gas and gas condensate are described separately. In the fourth part, the conventional gas processing operations are introduced together with the limit values of mercury distribution in natural gas processing operations. By analyzing the distribution and transformation of mercury in natural gas processing, the location of the mercury removal unit (MRU) for natural gas plants is optimized. In the fifth part, the different types of adsorbents for mercury removal from natural gas and liquid media are enumerated based on different mechanisms. The wet and acidic resistance of the different adsorbents in removing Hg0 from natural gas and flue gas is introduced. In the sixth part, as the species of mercury in a condensate are more complex than those in natural gas, the adsorption selectivity of each adsorbent for mercury removal from natural gas condensate is listed for comparison. Finally, the remaining challenges for mercury species determination and removal together with the expected future developments for mercury adsorbents are concluded.