Experimental Study on the Elemental Sulfur Solubility in Sour Gas Mixtures

Abstract

The investigation of elemental sulfur solubility plays critical roles on sour gas reservoir development. In this paper, the solubility of elemental sulfur was directly measured by static method with gas samples from well M1 of a sour gas reservoir in Sichuan Basin. The results show that the solubility of elemental sulfur ranges from 0.001 g/cm3 to 0.968 g/cm3 at 40–98.9 MPa and 15–49.8 MPa. The elemental sulfur solubility increases with increasing temperature and pressure, especially when the pressure is greater than 30 MPa. Moreover, the H2S content in sour gas mixtures is also an important factor affecting elemental sulfur solubility. The elemental sulfur solubility increases with increasing H2S content of the sour gas mixtures. The experimental data in this paper display a consistent trend with the reported experimental data. Based on the experimental results, the chrastil-type model, Robert’s model and Hu’s model were investigated and compared. The results show that the chrastil-type model by fitting experimental data in this paper has less error and higher accuracy in calculating elemental sulfur solubility in M gas reservoir. The chrastil-type models proposed in the literature, meanwhile, are only based on the regression of specific gas components and experimental conditions, which lead to a large error in the calculation of elemental sulfur solubility of sour gas samples in this research. The research results provide important basic data and technical support for the development of M gas reservoir.

A Modified Solid–Liquid–Gas Phase Equation of State

“… Comparison of the calculated solubility of solid sulfur with published data. 32 The symbols in the figure are the literature values, and the lines are the predicted result of the MSLV equation. …”

“…Therefore, this paper uses the MSLV equation to predict the solubility of solid sulfur in gas mixtures. The data used are shown in Table …”

“…The data used are shown in Table 3. 32 Elemental sulfur in sulfur-containing systems is a complex mixture that exists in several forms, from S 8 to S 1 , through chemical decomposition and coexists in equilibrium in both a gas and liquid fluids, as shown by the reaction equations in eqs 32 and 33. Heidemann 33 pointed out the isomeric conversion from S 8 to sulfur with increasing temperature.…”

Roles of Carbon Dioxide and Methane in the Dissolution of Elemental Sulfur in Natural Gas

“…Similar trends were successively reported in other measurements. [11][12][13][14]17 Although more than 200 measurements on the sulfur solubility in the pure or mixed components of natural gas have thus far been reported, most of them lack consistency. It is not a strange outcome because the measurements were conducted in harsh conditions of high temperature, high pressure, toxicity, and corrosiveness.…”

“…Solubility reduction of elemental sulfur is the underlying cause of sulfur deposition in natural gas. , Numerous experiments − have been conducted to measure the solubility of elemental sulfur in sour gases. Kennedy and Wieland first revealed that the sulfur solubility in pure H 2 S, CO 2 , CH 4 , and their mixtures increases with the temperature and pressure.…”