Merichem Gas Technologies

Finding the right treating solution to remove hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from a gas stream is a challenging task for any application. Fortunately, Merichem provides a complete portfolio of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) removal products and processes.

To date, Merichem has granted over 200 gas technology licenses across the globe to remove hydrogen sulfide from gas streams. For 35 years, these technologies have served a number of gas processing industries on a variety of process gas streams, with a wide range of inlet gas compositions, pressures, temperatures, and hydrogen sulfide levels.

The gas technology portfolio includes:

• The ELIMINATOR®, a fast-reacting, sacrificial liquid media, H2S scavenger; that can be applied in a variety of ways; including direct injection, spray, or column configurations;
• SULFUR-RITE®, a sacrificial solid media, H2S scavenger; that can be configured for one or two vessels, custom designs
• LO-CAT®, a water-based, environmentally friendly, regenerable iron-redox catalyst system; that has been continuously improved since being introduced in the early 1970s.

Breakthrough in gas technology

ACCORDING to a report in British weekly The Economist, new drilling technologies in America allow gas to be extracted from various new types of rocks, most notably shale.

Because of this success, North America has an unforeseen surfeit of natural gas. In 2008, Russia was the biggest producer of gas at 650bn cubic metres, but last year the US overhauled Russia.

The result was that North American gas prices slumped in 2009 by more than $13 per million BTUs to less than $5. The International Energy Agency estimates global reserves of shale gas to be some 921tr cubic metres which is more than five times proven conventional natural gas reserves.

Shale is ubiquitous and North America’s success can be repeated globally. In fact, China has set its companies a target of 30bn cubic metres from shale, i.e. ½ of the country’s 2008 demand of conventional gas. Shale gas is proving to be seriously embarrassing for Russia as Gazprom’s forecast in 2008 that its gas price to Europe would triple to $1,500 per 1m000 cu.mtrs. has seen actual prices drop to $350 last year with expectations of a further fall in 2010.

A global gas glut appears to be forming with the world demand down three per cent last year and European demand down seven per cent. This surfeit is set to transform the battle against carbon emission, threaten coal domination of electricity generation and reduce the power of exports of oil and conventional gas. Pakistan would do well to postpone the risk of building coal plants, invite major oil companies to look for shale gas here and take the full benefit of a new sub-terranean revolution shifting the geopolitics of global energy supply.

Meeting Today’s Critical Energy Challenges: Energy Efficiency

The development of energy-efficiency technologies is one of the most important and cost-effective ways that we can lower energy consumption, reduce energy costs, and control greenhouse gas emissions.

GTI has a long history of developing high-efficiency natural gas technologies and products for nearly every U.S. market – residential, commercial, industrial, power generation, and transportation. Working closely with partners in industry, government, and manufacturing, we're ramping up our efforts to develop energy technologies that contribute to a greener way of using energy.

Recent GTI energy efficiency projects include –

• “Super Boiler” – An advanced, 94%-efficient gas-fired boiler that offers significant performance improvements over alternative technologies with a smaller footprint and half the weight of conventional boilers
• Testing of a combination space/water heater – and a thermal efficiency of 90%
• A new low-cost combi-oven that incorporates GTI-patented design for crossflow convection.