INQUINOA   21218
INSTITUTO DE QUIMICA DEL NOROESTE
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Ethane Recovery from Residue Gas Using Pressure Swing Adsorption: Process design, optimization and adsorbent selection.
Autor/es:
A.M. AVILA ; L.E. PEREZ; J.A. SAWADA; S. M. KUZNICKI; A. RAJENDRAN
Lugar:
Calgary
Reunión:
Congreso; 65th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference; 2015
Institución organizadora:
Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE)
Resumen:
Ethane represents the major fraction among the hydrocarbons composing natural gas liquid (NGL) extracted in natural gas processing. The conventional ethane extraction technology is based on cryogenic distillation which is an energy intensive process. In the conventional extraction process, a small fraction of ethane slips with the residue gas stream (predominantly methane) and is eventually burned as fuel. Although a small fraction of the residue gas ( ≈ 2 mol%), it is estimated that several million barrels per day of ethane, one of the key building blocks for petrochemicals, is lost in this fashion. This work focuses on the conceptual design of an adsorption process for ethane recovery from the residue gas. The design work is based on the simulation of adsorption cycles using computing codes which involve rigorous mass, heat and momentum balances. Starting from a simple cycle, more complex configurations are designed and their performance is evaluated. Several configurations that provide high purity and recovery of ethane were identified. A key focus of this work was also to compare the performance of different adsorbents for this task. For this purpose, high pressure adsorption isotherms for methane and ethane on activated carbons and various forms of titano-silicate (ETS) materials were measured in our laboratory. Using a multi-objective optimization algorithm combined with a rigorous model, Pareto curves that provide the trade-off between ethane purity and recovery were calculated. Based on the Pareto curves Na-ETS-10 was found to be the best candidate among the materials studied.