Patent ID: 8779223

Claim:
A method for reducing one or more additives in a gaseous hydrocarbon stream, comprising the steps of: (a) admixing an initial hydrocarbon feed stream with one or more additives to provide a multiphase hydrocarbon stream; (b) passing the multiphase hydrocarbon stream from a first location to a second location; (c) at the second location, passing the multiphase hydrocarbon stream through a separator to provide one or more liquid streams comprising the majority of the one or more additives, and a gaseous hydrocarbon stream comprising the remainder of the one or more additives; (d) washing the gaseous hydrocarbon stream in a decontamination unit with a washing stream, wherein the washing stream comprises distilled water, to provide an additive enriched stream and an additive-reduced hydrocarbon stream; (e) passing at least a first fraction of the additive-enriched stream and one or more of the liquid streams from the separator through a regeneration unit wherein removing the additives by distillation so as to provide a cleaned washing stream in the form of distilled water, and one or more additive streams; and (f) using at least a first water stream fraction of the cleaned washing stream in the washing stream in step (d).