Revista UIS Ingenierías

Vol. 21 No. 1 (2022): Revista UIS Ingenierías
Articles

Computational analysis of homogeneous nucleation and droplet growth applied to natural gas separators

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  • Natalia Prieto-Jiménez ,
  • José Fuentes ,
  • Germán González-Silva
Natalia Prieto-Jiménez
Universidad Industrial de Santander
José Fuentes
Centro de Desarrollo Tecnológico-CDT del Gas
Germán González-Silva
Universidad Industrial de Santander
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18273/revuin.v21n1-2022007

Published 2021-11-23

Keywords

  • nucleation,
  • droplet growth,
  • molecular simulation,
  • umbrella sampling

How to Cite

Prieto-Jiménez , N., Fuentes , J. ., & González-Silva, G. (2021). Computational analysis of homogeneous nucleation and droplet growth applied to natural gas separators. Revista UIS Ingenierías, 21(1), 83–94. https://doi.org/10.18273/revuin.v21n1-2022007

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Abstract

A natural gas droplet is generated at certain thermodynamic conditions through three stages: supersaturation, where the gas has more molecules than it should have in equilibrium, forming “embryos” of liquid phase; nucleation, where embryos form groups of different shapes and sizes of nanometer order; and the droplet growth, where the number of molecules increases until equilibrium is reached. In this paper, the homogeneous nucleation and droplet growth of natural gas applied to gravitational separators operating at high pressure conditions (7MPa) are analyzed. The results showed that at a high pressure, the initial drop size reached was 8.024 nanometers and the final diameter of the drop was 4.18 micrometers.

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