Estimation of methanol vaporization loss and solubility in hydrocarbon liquid phase

The amount of hydrate inhibitor to be injected must not only be sufficient to prevent freezing of the inhibitor water phase, but also sufficient to provide for the equilibrium vapor phase content of the inhibitor and the solubility of the inhibitor in any liquid hydrocarbon. The vapor pressure of methanol must be high enough to ensure that significant quantities will vaporize. To estimate methanol vaporization losses, it is necessary to develop a new correlation. In this study, a simple-to-use correlation is developed for accurate prediction of the ratio of methanol vapor composition to methanol liquid composition. The correlation also predicts the solubility of methanol in paraffinic hydrocarbons at various temperatures and methanol concentrations. Predictions show very good agreement with the reported data. The ratio of methanol in the vapor phase to methanol in the liquid phase is predicted for temperatures between-6 to 18°C andpressures up to 20 MPa, where the average absolute deviation is around 2.58%. The solubility ofmethanol in paraffin hydrocarbons is calculated for temperatures in the range of-40 to 50°C and methanol concentrations up to 70% in water phase, where the average absolute deviation is around 3.27%.