Centrifugal separation for cleaning well gas streams

An examination of centrifugal gas separation applied to natural gas wells shows that it has some technical advantages for bulk removal of souring components in highly contaminated streams. Different criteria from those used in traditional UF6 processing apply, and we develop and describe these. In particular, the distribution of components means that enrichment occurs much closer to the center, which would imply easier separation. Symmetry considerations during analysis of a binary system show that the previous implicit assumption of steady-state pressure gradient requiring zero component convection during the setting up of the concentration gradient is incorrect, although the correction for our case is relatively small. Analysis of times for batch spin-up as well as radial pressure distributions indicate that high throughput operation at elevated pressures may be an option.