Tailoring the Stabilization and Pyrolysis Processes of Carbon Molecular Sieve Membrane Derived from Polyacrylonitrile for Ethylene/Ethane Separation

For ethylene/ethane separation, a CMS (carbon molecular sieve) membrane was developed with a PAN (polyacrylonitrile) polymer precursor on an alumina support. To provide an excellent thermal property to PAN precursor prior to the pyrolysis, the stabilization as a pre-treatment process was carried out. Tuning the stabilization condition was very important to successfully preparing the CMS membrane derived from the PAN precursor. The stabilization and pyrolysis processes for the PAN precursor were finely tuned, and optimized in terms of stabilization temperature and time, as well as pyrolysis temperature, heating rate, and soaking time. The PAN stabilized at >250 °C showed improved thermal stability and carbon yield. The CMS membrane derived from stabilized PAN showed reasonable separation performance for ethylene permeance (0.71 GPU) and ethylene/ethane selectivity (7.62), respectively. Increasing the pyrolysis temperature and soaking time gave rise to an increase in the gas permeance, and a reduction in the membrane selectivity. This trend was opposite to that for the CMS membranes derived from other polymer precursors. The optimized separation performance (ethylene permeance of 2.97 GPU and ethylene/ethane selectivity of 7.25) could be achieved at the pyrolysis temperature of 650 °C with a soaking time of 1 h. The separation performance of the CMS membrane derived from the PAN precursor was comparable to that of other polymer precursors, and surpassed them regarding the upper bound trade off.

Investigating the properties and performance of 3A molecular sieves as an adsorbent to prevent coke formation in olefin dehydration process

To study the affinity of 3A aluminosilicate adsorbents to prevent oligomerization of olefin molecules and forming green oil, physical and chemical properties of 3A molecular sieves are measured by using characterization techniques such as temperature-programmed desorption (TPD), nitrogen (N2) and water adsorptions, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), crushing strength, and carbon dioxide (CO2) adsorption. Moreover, coke formation affinities of the understudy adsorbents are evaluated in a bench-scale system using 1-butene and 1,3-butadiene at temperatures of 220 and 260 °C, and outcomes are validated against the actual data gathered from an industrial scale olefin dehydration plant. Results confirm that the type of binder and the amount of ion exchange affect the performance of a 3A molecular sieve nominated for dehydrating olefinic streams. The binder with the least amount of acidity is preferred, and at least 35% of Na ions of the 4A zeolite should be exchanged with K ions to make it applicable for synthesizing an appropriate 3A molecular sieve. Furthermore, to control the oligomerization and inhibit green oil formation, the CO2 adsorption and acidity of Trisiv shape molecular sieves with the sizes of 1/4 inch should be less than 0.5 wt % and 1.7 mmol NH3/g, respectively. For extrudate shape with the sizes of 1/16 inch CO2 adsorption and acidity should be less than 0.2 wt % and 2.2 mmol NH3/g, respectively.

Application analysis of layered pressure swing adsorption method for offshore floating natural gas purification

In view of the particularity of offshore operations, a new layered pressure swing adsorption (PSA) method for natural gas purification was proposed. CH4 is enriched in the three-component CH4/CO2/N2 crude mixed gas. The pressure swing adsorption process is based on the traditional method. The adsorption bed is divided into two layers, which are the first layer with activated carbon as the adsorbent to remove CO2 impurities, and the second layer with molecular sieve as adsorbent to remove N2 impurities. The process of PSA was simulated by Aspen Adsorption software. The simulation results show that after the process of double layered PSA, the purity of the product gas CH4 reached 98.7%, and the recovery rate of gas production was 89%. The concentration of CO2 was successfully reduced to 0.23% in the activated carbon layer, and the concentration of N2 was reduced to 1.2% in the molecular sieve layer of the first Tower.