Natural Gas Processing

4.3. Conventional gas–liquid separators

Conventional gas–liquid separators are usually characterized as vertical, horizontal, or spherical. Horizontal separators can be single or double barrel and can be equipped with sumps or boots. They may be further classified as two-phase (gas–liquid) or three-phase (gas–liquid–liquid). Horizontal separators can be single- or double-barrel and can be equipped with sumps or boots.

Regardless of shape, separation vessels usually contain four major sections plus the necessary controls. These sections are shown for horizontal and vertical vessels in Figure 4.5.

As shown in Figure 4.5, the inlet device (A) is used to reduce the momentum of the inlet flow stream, perform an initial bulk separation of the gas and ...