Mono ethylene glycol (MEG) has been used as a thermodynamic hydrate inhibitor in the gas industry. Due to its high usage, recoverability and environmental impact, MEG is regenerated instead of releasing to the environment. During the regeneration (distillation) process, MEG is exposed to higher temperatures in the reboiler to remove surplus water. When exposed to high temperatures, MEG thermal degradation process can occur due to dissociation to organic acids including glycolic, acetic and formic acids. A batch distillation system was utilised in total reflux mode at different reboiler temperatures retention times for up to 18 h in a span of 3 h and MEG concentrations of 80.8, 70.3, 63.1, 51.0 and 40.2 vol percentage (vol %) with corresponding reboiler testing temperatures of 118.0, 113.2, 108.8, 104.2 and 102.5 °C, respectively. The objective of this experimental work focuses on determining the MEG degradation products i.e. organic acids, accumulation in the MEG regeneration system. The degradation products were analysed using Ion Chromatography (IC) technique at the Curtin Corrosion Centre (CCC) laboratory, Perth, Western Australia.

The experimental results indicate that there is an increasing trend of the MEG degradation products at higher boiling point temperatures for higher MEG concentrations in comparison to the lower MEG concentrations. Moreover, organic acids accumulation in the reboiler was evident at longer reboiler retention time durations of 18 h. The findings of this study conclude that it is preferable to operate the reboiler at lower MEG concentrations levels of 40.2 vol % and at reboiler retention time of 3 h to decrease the likelihood of the MEG degradation products. The percentage increase of the total organic acids at 40.2 vol % was found to be 27.7% as compared to 32.6% at 80.8 vol %. This study is beneficial to the oil and gas industry as it proposes the percentage amount of MEG to be used for hydrate inhibition in order to minimize the production of organic acids. High levels of organic acids accumulation in the regenerated lean lowers the efficiency of MEG thermodynamic inhibition performance.

单乙二醇（MEG）在天然气工业中已用作热力学水合物抑制剂。由于其高利用率，可恢复性和对环境的影响，MEG可以再生而不是释放到环境中。在再生（蒸馏）过程中，MEG在再沸器中暴露于较高温度下，以去除多余的水。当暴露于高温下时，由于分解为有机酸（包括乙醇酸，乙酸和甲酸），可能会发生MEG热降解过程。分批蒸馏系统以全回流模式在不同的再沸器温度下保留时间长达3小时，持续时间为18小时，MEG浓度分别为80.8、70.3、63.1、51.0和40.2体积百分比（vol％），并进行了相应的再沸器测试温度分别为118.0、113.2、108.8、104.2和102.5°C。该实验工作的目的在于确定MEG降解产物，即有机酸，MEG再生系统中的积累。在西澳大利亚州珀斯的科廷腐蚀中心（CCC）实验室使用离子色谱（IC）技术分析了降解产物。

实验结果表明，与较低的MEG浓度相比，较高的MEG浓度在较高的沸点温度下存在MEG降解产物的增加趋势。而且，在再沸器停留时间更长的18小时内，有机酸在再沸器中的积累是明显的。这项研究的结果得出结论，为降低MEG降解产物的可能性，最好在40.2％（体积）的较低MEG浓度和3h的再沸器停留时间下操作再沸器。发现总有机酸在40.2体积％时的百分比增加为27.7％，而在80.8体积％时为32.6％。这项研究对石油和天然气工业是有益的，因为它提出了用于抑制水合物的MEG的百分比量，以最大程度地减少有机酸的产生。再生贫油中高水平的有机酸积累降低了MEG热力学抑制性能的效率。