Helium recovery using membrane processes
Helium recovery using membrane processes
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DOI：
10.1016/j.seppur.2017.07.084
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发表时间：
2017-12-22
影响因子：
8.6
通讯作者：
Wessling, Matthias
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Alders, Michael;Winterhalder, Dominik;Wessling, Matthias
氦气是许多高科技应用的关键资源。唯一可行的氦气来源是天然气，其中氦气含量高达 2%。这些低氦浓度需要有效的分离和纯化过程，以在经济上可行。然而，目前广泛使用的低温蒸馏是能源密集型的，并且仅适用于高氦浓度。较低浓度的氦气通常不会被使用，而是被排放到大气中。在这里，我们比较两种情况下氦气回收的不同工艺替代方案：(A) 建造一个新的天然气工厂 (B) 对现有工厂进行改造以进行氦气回收。过程模拟在 Aspen Plus 中进行，并与经济评估相结合。结果表明，即使在低氦浓度下，膜工艺也能与热分离技术很好地竞争。
Helium is a key resource for many high-tech applications. The only feasible source of helium is natural gas, which can contain up to 2% helium. These low helium concentrations demand efficient separation and purification processes to be economically feasible. However, the currently wide-spread low-temperature distillation is energy intensive and only applied at high helium concentrations. Instead of being used, lower helium concentrations are usually vented to the atmosphere. Here, we compare different process alternatives for helium recovery for two cases: (A) A new natural gas plant is built (B) an existing plant is retrofitted for helium recovery. Process simulations are conducted in Aspen Plus and are combined with an economical evaluation. The results show that membrane processes can well compete with thermal separation technologies even at low helium concentrations.