ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE DETERMINATION OF MERCURY IN ACID GAS TREATMENT PROCESS AND ITS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS 1,2 El-Feky, A.A., 1,* Mohamed B. Masod, and 1 Faramawy, S. 1 Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt 2 Department of Physics, College of Science, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Mercury occurs naturally in unprocessed hydrocarbon streams, which can damage the equipment and contaminate the treatment fluids as well as pose a health risk to workers and the environment. Mercury was determined in all stream fluids for sweetening process (Benfield solution process) and composition analysis also determined to evaluate the performance of the process. Fourteen samples were collected from natural gas, Benfield solution, water, sludge and solid samples. Mercury was measured on-site for gas streams using cold vapor atomic absorption (CV-AAS) technique. Total Hg concentrations were measured for liquid streams and solid samples with AAS after digestion with a different technique. Vent gases (composed mainly of carbon dioxide) have high Hg concentration reached to 21.6 µg/Sm 3 for Train2, emitted to the atmosphere without treatment. This study suggests that separate carbon dioxide and install Claus process for remove H 2 S and periodically monitor Hg for the treatment process and environment. Moreover, mercury contaminates the Benfield solution where the total Hg concentration of rich Benfield solution reached to 175.4 ng/g for Train2 but the lean Benfield solution free of mercury due to the regeneration process. Although water collected from reflux is condensed water, but it has high mercury content reached 122.1 ng/g for train1. Finally, solid and sludge samples collected from regeneration package contain mercury sulfide, which reached to 8.2 weight% of sludge sample. Therefore, the workers when cleaning the vessel from solid and sludge must take all safety precaution. Copyright ©2017, El-Feky et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. INTRODUCTION Natural Gas is a vital component of the world's supply of energy and considered as an environmentally friendly clean fuel, offering important environmental benefits when compared to other fossil fuels. The superior environmental qualities over coal and crude oil are the negligibility of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions. This helps to reduce problems of acid rain and greenhouse gases (Mokhatab, 2006). Egypt’s estimated proven gas reserves stand at 77 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) and the fourth‒largest amount in Africa (EIA, 2015). Natural gas is a mixture of hydrocarbon and non‒hydrocarbon compounds (impurities). The hydrocarbon compounds normally found in natural gas are methane, ethane, *Corresponding author: Mohamed B. Masod, Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt. propane, butane, pentane, and small amounts of the heavier hydrocarbons that are mainly hexane, heptane, and octane. Some aromatics can also be present such as benzene, toluene and xylenes. The non‒hydrocarbon gasses are nitrogen, carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen sulfide, water vapor, and other sulfur compounds such as carbonyl sulfide and mercaptans (Speight, 2007). Mercury is also being present in produced and processed natural gas, hydrocarbon liquids and wastewater in various forms. The mercury removal unit (MRU) must be installed in gas plant even for the low concentration levels of mercury, especially when the gas processing plant consists of the aluminum heat exchanger. Raw natural gas must be processed before moving into high pressure pipeline systems for use by consumers. Natural gas processing means the separation of undesirable components, such as water, acid gases (CO 2 and H 2 S) and heavy hydrocarbons. This is in order to facilitate its transportation and meet specifications for commercial use. ISSN: 2230-9926 International Journal of Development Research Vol. 07, Issue, 11, pp.17246-17252, November, 2017 Article History: Received 16 th August 2017 Received in revised form 27 th September, 2017 Accepted 03 rd October, 2017 Published online 30 th November, 2017 Available online at http://www.journalijdr.com Key Words: Mercury, Carbon Dioxide, Sweetening Process, Vent Gas, Natural Gas, Benfield Solution. Citation: El-Feky, A.A., Mohamed B. Masod, and Faramawy, S. 2017. “Determination of mercury in acid gas treatment process and its environmental impacts”, International Journal of Development Research, 7, (11), 17246-17252. ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS