Novel separation process for gas mixtures

该提案旨在进一步推进清洁技术领域感兴趣的气体混合物分离的新工艺。该工艺基于气体水合物结晶。感兴趣的气体混合物是含有二氧化碳和氢气的混合物。这些气体是气化和变换反应的产物，它们的分离提供了氢（一种清洁燃料），也可以捕获二氧化碳。另一个应用领域是烟道气混合物（化石燃料燃烧的产物）。其关键技术思想是，当笼形水合物从气体混合物如CO2/H2或CO2/N2中形成时，笼形物相富含CO2，因此结晶用作分离阶段。这一概念已在UBC实验室中使用小型（小于1 L）结晶器进行了验证。此外，这一概念已被世界各地其他实验室的类似规模的设备所证实.最近，我们在UBC开发了一个独特的实验室规模装置，该装置由两个10 L高压结晶器组成，可以在交替的水合/解离模式下操作。拟议项目的目标是与工艺开发行业的专家合作，进行一系列动力学实验，以获得有关在特定添加剂存在下形成和分解速率随时间变化的信息，这些添加剂降低了工艺压力，从而降低了工艺经济性（需要更少的压缩）。需要考虑的添加剂有：四正丁基溴化铵（TBAB）、四正丁基氟化铵（TBAF）和四正丁基硝酸铵（TBANO 3）。虽然这些添加剂的使用降低了压力要求，但缺点是它们会降低过程的动力学.建议的工作将阐明的影响添加剂的动态过程中使用新的UBC设备。这些数据将为进一步开发分离工艺的可行性评估提供关键信息。

This proposal aims to further advance a novel process for the separation of gas mixtures of interest in cleantechnology area. The process is based on gas hydrate crystallization. Gas mixtures of interest are thosecontaining carbon dioxide and hydrogen. These gases are products of gasification and shift reactions and theirseparation provides hydrogen (a clean fuel) and also serves to capture carbon dioxide. Another area ofapplication is in flue gas mixtures (products of the combustion of fossil fuels). The key technical idea is thefact that when clathrate hydrates form from a gas mixture such as CO2/H2 or CO2/N2 the clathrate phase isenriched with CO2 and thus, the crystallization serves as a separation stage. This concept has been proven inthe laboratory at UBC using small (less than 1 L) crystallizers. In addition the concept has been proven bysimilar scale equipment in other laboratories around the world. Recently, we have developed a unique benchscale unit at UBC that consists of two 10 L high pressure crstallizers that can operate in an alternating hydrateformation/dissociation mode. The goal of the proposed project is to engage with experts from the processdevelopment industry in order to conduct a set of kinetic experiments to obtain information about he timedependence of the formation and decomposition rates in the presence of specific additives which reduce theprocess pressure and thus the process economics (demanding less compression). The additives to be consideredare: tetra-n-butyl ammonium bromide (TBAB); tetra-n-butyl ammonium fluoride (TBAF); and tetra-n-butylammonium nitrate (TBANO3). While the use of these additives reduces the pressure requirements thedrawback is that they are expected to decrease the kinetics of the process. The proposed work will elucidate theimpact of the additives on the dynamics of the process using the new UBC apparatus. The data will providecritical information for the assessment of the feasibility of the separation process for further development.