Basrah University for Oil and Gas

College of Oil and Gas Engineering

Oil and Gas Engineering Department

NATURAL GAS ENGINEERING REPORT

MEMBRANES PROCESS TO SWEET NATURAL GAS

AHMED AYAD KHALEEFAH

2nd semester

4th stage

DATE: 2020/7/18
 TABLE-OF-CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1

Application of Membrane Separation in Natural Gas System ................................................. 2

What is Membrane? ..................................................................................................................... 2

Membrane Configuration ............................................................................................................ 2

Advantages of Membranes ........................................................................................................... 3

Disadvantages of Membrane Separation .................................................................................... 3

Membrane Classification.............................................................................................................. 4

Desirable Properties of Membrane ............................................................................................. 4

Types of Membranes for Natural Gas Separation ..................................................................... 5

Cellulose Acetate ........................................................................................................................... 5

Parameters Effecting on Membrane Performance .................................................................... 5

Permeation Mechanism through a non-porous Membrane ...................................................... 6

Separation Factor.......................................................................................................................... 6

Membrane Modules in Natural Gas System .............................................................................. 7

Membrane Cascade ...................................................................................................................... 9

Membranes in Separation process of Acid Gas (CO2) ............................................................ 11

CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 12

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 13
 INTRODUCTION

Membrane Process is rapidly emerging in the oil industry for use in the treatment of production
gases. Selective filtration consists of a membrane Polymeric is used to separate gaseous
compounds such as CO 2, H 2 S, and water from a natural gas. when subjected to differential
pressure. In processes with semi-permeable membranes (permeation Process) the gas enters a
container that has two different pressure zones separated by an EI gas membrane enters the
highest pressure zone and selectively loses the components that can be permeate throughout the
membranes to the area of least pressure. They could be allowed to components that have an
affinity for the membrane. The membrane has a very high affinity for water, H 2 S and CO2.
Membrane filtration process: gas enters the container where the membrane is installed and it is
above this. Below the membrane there is a lower pressure and therefore tried to pass the gas but
only will make the molecules having affinity for the membrane is gas contaminants, although
some hydrocarbons will also pass depending on the pressure difference on both sides of the
membrane, the content of contaminants and the membrane permeability. Most of the
hydrocarbon molecules will not pass the membrane and said ran of the container with a lower
content of contaminants. If the membrane lower the content of contaminants in the gas to values
as low as those achieved with conventional treatments to remove CO2, H2S and water, these
could be replaced by membranes especially in production platforms due to weight reduction and
space requirements of the installation. Flat membranes are not used commercially because they
do not have enough area. Membranes which can be used-in-combination-with/traditional-
equipment in the-removal of-CO 2 where-the-membrane-is used to remove part of the CO 2 from
the gas entering sweetening, before it-comes into contact with the amine-solution in the
contactor, and then used to remove part of the CO 2 from the solution of-amines that will
regenerate, before entering the regenerating tower. During the last years, the use of membranes
as technology has grown appreciably in the natural gas treatment. The reasons are clear: Simple
processes (without moving parts, operation of simple units); cheaper than amine units over the
same range. Small sizes; compact, lightweight and mounted on platforms that can be transport or
move easily. The successful application of membrane technology will bring more natural gas to
consumers at a lower price.

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Application of Membrane Separation in Natural Gas System
 Dehydration of natural gas
 Acid gas removal
 Carbon dioxide
 Hydrogen sulphide etc.
 Nitrogen removal

What is Membrane?
 Membrane defined as a semi-permeable (or permselective) barrier that allows
selective permeation of some species through it which means that membrane
allows some of the components to pass through it while it preventing a few
particles to move through it.
 This membrane separation use both in liquid or gas separation.

Membrane Configuration
 Feed that is separated intro
 Retentate (the part that will not be passed through a membrane)
 Permeate (that part which passes through membrane)

Figure 1: Typical Configuration of membrane

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Advantages of Membranes
 Light weight (modular construction) because these come in modular construction
 Large turndown ratio (ratio of maximum to minimum capacity) as if we want to increase
the capacity, so the number of modulus.
 Low capital investment
 Low maintenance
 Ease of operation
 Low operating cost
 No chemicals needed

Disadvantages of Membrane Separation

 Proves expensive if multi - staging and / or recycling is done.
 Membranes are prone to;
 Mechanical and thermal damage at high pressures and high temperatures
 Fouling (means that the deposition of unwanted products on the membrane surface
which result that the molecular can not move through membranes as well as the
resistance to separation will increase so decreasing the efficiency, and deposition of
particulates (→ needs feed pre - treatment)
 In case of natural gas, some methane is lost with water vapor permeating the membrane,
making membrane process noncompetitive with absorption.
 Requirement of feed gas pretreatment

 Gas compression

 Generally higher loss of hydrocarbon gases

 Low capacity

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Membrane Classification
 POROUS- liquid separation
 Non-porous- gas separation
 Non-porous membranes have non-detectable pore at the limits of electron
microscopy.

Desirable Properties of Membrane

 Good permeability (high mass - transfer flux)
 High selectivity
 Defect free (means there shouldn’t be any kind of pinhole in membranes and shouldn’t be
distortion)
 High stability (Chemical – it should not get dissolved or react with any components,
Mechanical- it shoud withstand high pressure difference occurs across the membrane
surface, Thermal- it should not get any damaged by any high temperature)
 Low fouling- it should not retaining any waste matters or fouling matters on it
 Reasonable useful life
 Ease of fabrication into compact, economical modules of high surface area per unit
volume
 Amenability to packaging- it means the ability to package the whole model easily

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Types of Membranes for Natural Gas Separation
 Polyimide (CO2 removal)
 Cellulose acetate (CO2 removal)
 Perfluoro polymer (CO2, N2, C3 + hydrocarbons removal)
 Silicone rubber (CO2, N2, C3 + hydrocarbons removal)
 Polysulfone (water removal)

Cellulose Acetate
 Most commonly used for acid gas removal.
 Consists of a thin layer (from 0.2 to 0.6 um) of cellulose acetate on top of a thicker layer
of a porous support material.
 Have highest CO2 selectivity over CH4.
 Non-reactive to most organic solvents.

Parameters Effecting on Membrane Performance

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Permeation Mechanism through a non-porous Membrane
 Solution - diffusion mechanism
 The-Dissolution of the gas into the high - pressure upstream face of the membrane
 The-Diffusion/ of the gas that goes in the membrane-desorption-from low/pressure
downstream face of the membranes.

Figure 2: Mechanism process in non-porous

Separation Factor
 Depends on
 The module flow pattern Ideal separation factor defined as the permeability ratio.
 The driving force for mass transfer through the membrane.
 The cut (Ratio of moles for a species in the permeate to moles of the same species in
the feed).

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Membrane Modules in Natural Gas System
 Spiral Wound Module
 Compact layout
 The basic unit is like sandwich-flat membrane sheet which expressed as
(leaf) wound around a central of a perforated tube.
 It include two membrane sheets placed and disturbed using a spacer called
permeate carrier.
 Layers for typical leaf are agglutinate along a three boundaries, while the
not-agglutinate edge are sealed around a perforated central tube.
 Feed gas goes to a spacer channel at the end of the/spiral/wound element
in a parallel path to the central tube.

 Hollow Fiber Module

 Fibers can be bundled together longitudinally, potted in a resin on both
ends, and covered in a pressurized vessel
 Extremely high packing density
 High open channel design, high contact surface to volume ratio (7000-
13000 m2 / m3).
 Offers the possibility of backwashing from the permeate side, particularly
suited for low solids liquid streams.

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 Figure 3: Spiral wound module

Figure 4: Hollow Fiber Membrane Module

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Membrane Cascade

Simplified single stage process shown in (figure 5). The single stage membrane process,
without any recycle streams. The crude natural gas flows nearly above the/side of the feed-of the
membrane. Along the way, CO2 permeates passed by the membrane to the permeate side. The
retentive leaves the membrane with nearly the same pressure as the feed. On the permeate/side,
permeate stream that is contain a quantity of CO2 will leave the membrane. A single stage
process has always lower investment cost than a multistage process but has higher gas processing
cost. To increase the-recovery/of/methane, a multistage membrane unit is desired as shown in
(Figure 2). The configuration multistage distinguish that it reduces the hydrocarbon losses to the
minimum limit. Moreover, it has a higher investment costs compared to the single stage. The
permeate of the first membrane consider to be serves as it feed for the other membrane. So, the
permeate stream will be recompressing and cooling. In addition, the retentate stream of the
second membrane stage will compressed again, cooling and recycling as it feeds to the first
stage. The retentate stream that comes by the first stage will be gathered as product gas.

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 Figure 5: Simplified single stage process

Figure 6: Multistage membrane process

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Membranes in Separation process of Acid Gas (CO2)

Membrane process of multistage is designed as shown in (Figure 7), the first membrane unit
break up CO2 from the natural gas to achieve pipeline specification. As a result of a methane that
is considered to be permeates through the membrane, a losses of 14% are noticed. Therefore, the
permeate stream from the first membrane unit is compressed and passed through a second
membrane unit to recover the CH4. The process is operating at a low stage-cut to minimize the
losing of CH4 in the membrane to 1.5%. The retentate from the second membrane unit, which
has a significant amount of CO2 present, is recycled to the feed of the first membrane unit which
appeared that for such a two stage process and also for the purpose of reducing a natural gas
stream from 12 vol% to 3 vol% CO2, the energy of compression was only 108 kJ/m3 which is
very agreeably comparing to the energy consumption of the amine absorption process of 500–
800 kJ/m3. Specifically, when significant amounts of heavy hydrocarbons are observed, along
with H2S which can be separated from natural gas by divided them together or in stages and then
they will be isolated.

Figure 7: Membrane process design for achieving CO2 separation from natural gas

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CONCLUSION

 Membranes process is very effective and low cost comparing to other traditional process
such as amine process.
 Membranes could be porous which used for separation liquid and non-porous which used
for separation of gas.
 There are different types of membranes such as Cellulose acetate and Perfluoro polymer
 The process of sweetening for natural gas could be in single stage membranes or multi-
stage depending on the amount of gas the purity ,economical limit and the temperature
and pressure handling consideration.
 Three parameter should be caring about which is the temperature, pressure and the flow
rate as it effect on the membranes separation.
 The configuration of membrane can be splits into three parts which is feed, retentate and
permeate.
 It is economical process as competitive to other processes since there is no chemicals or
additives requirements.
 There are two modules of membrane used in natural gas system that is hollow fiber and
spiral wound.

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REFERENCES

 https://www.slideshare.net/
 https://www.scribd.com/
 https://www.coursehero.com/
 https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-petroleum-science-and-engineering
 https://slideplayer.com/

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