4. Gas absorption or gas scrubbing is a commonly used method for removing environmentally undesirable species from waste gases in chemical manufacturing and combustion processes. The waste gas is contacted with a liquid solvent in which the potential pollutants are highly soluble and the other species in the waste gas are relatively insoluble. Most of the pollutants go into solution and emerge with the liquid effluent from the scrubber, and the cleaned gas is discharged to the atmosphere. The liquid effluent may be discharged to a waste lagoon or subjected to further treatment to recover the solvent and/or to convert the pollutant to a species that can be released safely to the environment. In an absorption tower (or absorber, scrubber), a gas is contacted with a liquid under conditions such that one or more species in the gas dissolve in the liquid. A stripping tower (or stripper) also involves a gas contacting a liquid but under conditions such that one or more components of the feed liquid come out of solution and exit in the gas leaving the tower. A process consisting of an absorption tower and a stripping tower is used to separate the components of a gas containing 30.0 mole% carbon dioxide and the balance methane. A stream of this gas is fed to the bottom of the absorber. A liquid containing 0.500 mole% dissolved CO2 and the balance methanol is recycled from the bottom of the stripper and fed to the top of the absorber. The product gas leaving the top of the absorber contains 1.00 mole% CO2 and essentiality ail of the methane fed to the unit. The CO2-rich liquid solvent leaving the bottom of the absorber is fed to the top of the stripper and a stream of nitrogen gas is fed to the bottom. Ninety percent of the CO2) in the liquid feed to the stripper comes out of solution in the column, and the nitrogen/ CO2); stream leaving the column passes out to the atmosphere through a stack. The liquid stream leaving the stripping tower is the 0.500% CO2, solution recycled to the absorber