Abstract
Since the early 1800's, fuel gases of various sorts (acetylene, blast furnace gas, flue water gas, carbureted water gas, coal gas, coke oven gas and producer gas) were transmitted at low pressures in pipelines and were conditioned for contaminate removal. The removal of such contaminates as H2S was usually accomplished by solid absorbents such as iron oxide, a process that is still in use today.
The discovery by Bottoms and others in the late 20's of a regenerative process employing alkanolamines was instrumental in rapid increase in the use of natural gas in large volumes. Also at this time, the development of wide diameter pipelines that could handle 500-700 psi gas pressure provided the means of handling these large volumes of gas.
The protection of the pipeline from corrosion depended upon contaminate removal of water, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. In the process of contaminant removal, the process equipment suffered severe corrosion damage. Corrosion test methods and inhibitors were applied to those early processes and have advanced from weep holes and coupons to the present way of electronic and physical test methods.
The trend is away from the primary amine at either low strength or inhibited at high concentration to less corrosive, "tailor-made" solvents that can be designed or formulated to perform a given task at acceptable corrosion rates and at much lower energy levels.
