Effect of High Pressure on the Performance of Coalescing Filter Cartridges for the Natural Gas Purification

Abstract The performance of coalescing filter cartridges (of four different specifications) after a 410-day field operation for the high-pressure natural gas purification has been evaluated in this study. Our evaluation of field-tested filter cartridges showed the increase of the filter pressure drop by a factor of 5.28 and the decrease of the filtration efficiency at various degrees, resulting in 50.3% loss in the filter quality factor (on average). The above evidenced the performance degradation of coalescing filter cartridges after the field application. Through the basic property characterization of composite media in tested filter cartridges, it was found the observed performance degradation of tested coalescing filter cartridges was attributed to the increase in the pore size of the coalescing layer (0.4-30.4%), and the decrease of both pore size (2.3-23.7%) and thickness (3.3-28.7%) in the drainage layer. Via the performance evaluation of composite media composed of only coalescing and drainage layers used in both fresh and tested cartridges, it is concluded that the coalescing filter cartridges with composite media having both oleophobic coalescing and drainage layers, and high tensile and compression strengths, are excellent candidates for the stable and reliable operation of natural gas filtration at high pressure.