Vent Scrubber Sizing

Sizing a vent scrubber for oil and gas process

This worksheet helps you pick the right size of vent scrubber — a tall vertical tank that cleans up a gas stream by knocking liquid droplets out of it before the gas vents to atmosphere or to a flare.

You tell it:

• How much gas, oil, and water you've got coming in
• The pressure and temperature
• Some basic fluid properties (how heavy the gas and liquids are)

It then tries five different tank diameters side by side (30", 36", 42", 48", 48") and tells you, for each one:

• How thick the wall needs to be to safely hold the pressure
• How much gas it can handle before droplets start getting carried out the top
• How long the liquid sits inside (retention time) — important for separation
• Whether the mist-catching internals (mesh pad and vane pack — the parts that grab tiny droplets) will physically fit inside that diameter

You scan across the columns and pick the smallest tank that passes all the checks. Bigger = safer but more expensive; smaller = cheaper but might not do the job.

Think of it like sizing a kitchen strainer for a given flow of water — too small and stuff sloshes through, too big and you've wasted money on a strainer you didn't need.