Where’s the Water?

Craig Spears

May 11, 2007

If you are trying to find the water content or water dew point of your gas, add a “Freeze Out, Hydrate, H2O Dew Point” analysis to the stream. The temperature of the water dew point is given, as is the water content of that stream (reported as lbm/MMSCF, pounds per million standard cubic feet).

What if there is not a number here, though – what if the spot is just a red blank? This occurs in ProMax version 1.2 (and previous versions) for the water dew point value and simply indicates that there is not enough water in the stream to form a liquid phase; instead it will form another phase such as ice or hydrate.

Many customers requested us to report the water dew point, and with our focus on meeting the customers' requests, we have changed this in our latest release. In version 2.0, the water dew point is reported along with a message "Warning: Water dew point temperature is thermodynamically unstable and will not form a free aqueous phase." This message is indicating that the amount of water is not sufficient to form its own liquid phase and will instead form another phase such as ice or hydrate.

Authored by Craig Spears - BR&E Sales Department