“…Natural gas is expanded and then fractionated by a series of distillation columns (demethanizer, deethanizer, depropanizer, and debutanizer). 8 These processes are highly energyintensive, thus creating a large potential for energy-efficient and compact membrane separation technology to remove higher hydrocarbons from natural gas. 9 Conventional glassy and crystalline polymer membranes for gas separations are not suitable since they selectively permeate methane, whereas it is desired to permeate and remove the minority C 2+ components through the membrane.…”
Separation of higher hydrocarbons from methane is an important and energy‐intensive operation in natural gas processing. We present a detailed investigation of thin and oriented MFI zeolite membranes fabricated from 2D MFI nanosheets on inexpensive α‐alumina hollow fiber supports, particularly for separation of n‐butane, propane, and ethane (“natural gas liquids”) from methane. These membranes display high permeances and selectivities for C2–C4 hydrocarbons over methane, driven primarily by stronger adsorption of C2–C4 hydrocarbons. We study the separation characteristics under unary, binary, ternary, and quaternary mixture conditions at 298 K and 100–900 kPa feed pressures. The membranes are highly effective in quaternary mixture separation at elevated feed pressures, for example allowing n‐butane/methane separation factors of 170–280 and n‐butane permeances of 710–2,700 GPU over the feed pressure range. We parametrize and apply multicomponent Maxwell–Stefan transport equations to predict the main trends in separation behavior over a range of operating conditions.
“…Natural gas is expanded and then fractionated by a series of distillation columns (demethanizer, deethanizer, depropanizer, and debutanizer). 8 These processes are highly energyintensive, thus creating a large potential for energy-efficient and compact membrane separation technology to remove higher hydrocarbons from natural gas. 9 Conventional glassy and crystalline polymer membranes for gas separations are not suitable since they selectively permeate methane, whereas it is desired to permeate and remove the minority C 2+ components through the membrane.…”
Separation of higher hydrocarbons from methane is an important and energy‐intensive operation in natural gas processing. We present a detailed investigation of thin and oriented MFI zeolite membranes fabricated from 2D MFI nanosheets on inexpensive α‐alumina hollow fiber supports, particularly for separation of n‐butane, propane, and ethane (“natural gas liquids”) from methane. These membranes display high permeances and selectivities for C2–C4 hydrocarbons over methane, driven primarily by stronger adsorption of C2–C4 hydrocarbons. We study the separation characteristics under unary, binary, ternary, and quaternary mixture conditions at 298 K and 100–900 kPa feed pressures. The membranes are highly effective in quaternary mixture separation at elevated feed pressures, for example allowing n‐butane/methane separation factors of 170–280 and n‐butane permeances of 710–2,700 GPU over the feed pressure range. We parametrize and apply multicomponent Maxwell–Stefan transport equations to predict the main trends in separation behavior over a range of operating conditions.
“…C 2 + recovery method is to extract lighter liquid hydrocarbons (ethane and propane) from LNG, and it is generally called light hydrocarbons (LH) recovery in China. The LH fractions can be sold as a refinery feedstock, whereas the heavier hydrocarbons can be sold as the gasoline-blending feedstock [8,9]. This provides a strong economic incentive for recovering these components from the LNG prior to vaporization, with the added benefit of making the resulting gas more compatible with existing gas transmission pipelines by reducing its heating value [10].…”
In recent years, large quantities of LNG sources have occured in international trade, which have also presented themselves with vary compositions and contain more than 10 mol % light hydrocarbons components (such as ethane and propane).This paper takes a certain typical Chinese liquefied natural gas receiving terminal as an example. For the exchange and economic issues caused by high C 2 + components in the feedstock of the above mentioned LNG terminal, an adjustion of the calorific value in products by adopting LH recovery, nitrogen gas injection and liquid nitrogen injection is advised. In order to evaluate profits in LNG receiving terminal, three kinds of processes have been simulated by using of the Aspen HYSYS to realize the consumption analysis. Further more, economic benefits of three schemes are analyzed based on energy measurements. It was shown that the after-tax net profit of the receiving terminal which adds liquid nitrogen to adjust calorific value is 6.17% higher than that which extracts C 2 + components under the volume measurement system. Under the system of energy measurement, the after-tax net profit of three processes is respectively increased by 8.96%, 12.51% and 12.47% compared to the original measure modes. The results suggest that the proposed liquid nitrogen injection processes is the most effective one which injects at the exit of high-pressure efflux pump, and an economical way to adjust heat value, which has the highest net profit and the lowest consumption cost and capital cost in the current Chinese LNG industry chain and economic situation.
“…Some studies have optimized operating parameters or conducted irreversible analysis for existing plants . Some studies have compared energy consumption and product recovery for efficient processes , , . Few studies have combined these approaches with a detailed economic study.…”
Maximizing the profits of natural gas liquid recovery plants is a challenge. To improve the performance of an existing plant, three process schemes were compared and analyzed with Aspen HYSYS. A high‐pressure absorber (HPA) performed better owing to the added compressor and more reasonable cold energy utilization. The HPA was further optimized by establishing an objective function and identifying and adjusting the main variables on the basis of a new optimization algorithm. The propane recovery of the optimized HPA was 98.8 %, and the plant profitability increased by 3352 million $ a−1. Exergy analysis of the optimum process indicated that the column and air cooler contributed the most to the total exergy destruction. Suggestions for decreasing the exergy destruction of the process are also given.
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