In most cases the natural gas has to be treated prior to further processing. The natural gas is dried to avoid freezing in the downstream processing steps either by glycol washing or in molecular sieve adsorbers.

Removal of H2S and CO2 from the natural gas may be required. Scrubbing processes such as MDEA, Benfield or SULFINOL usually represent the most attractive solution for sour gas removal. Minor amounts of sour gas however can be removed by adsorption together with the removal of water.

As a main contractor for the gas processing industry Linde Engineering has built more than 70 sour gas removal units over the last 25 years.