화학공학소재연구정보센터
홈 로그인 로그아웃 연락처 사이트맵
Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol.36, No.6, 914-928, June, 2019
DOI10.1007/s11814-018-0226-x  Export Citation
Enhancing natural gas dehydration performance using electrospun nanofibrous sol-gel coated mixed matrix membranes
Seyed Jalil Poormohammadian, Parviz Darvishi†, and Abdol Mohammad Ghalambor Dezfuli1
  • Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Yasouj University, Yasouj, Iran
  • 1Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran
E-mail:
The dehydration process of natural gas was investigated by mixed matrix membranes (MMM), which were fabricated by electrospinning and sol-gel coating methods. Silica and titania nanoparticles (NPs) were incorporated into the polymer matrix via sol-gel method. The fabricated MMMs were characterized by field emission electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Dehydration tests were carried out for wet pure methane and natural gas streams individually. The effects of different process parameters, including feed and sweep gas flow rates, moisture content in the feed, feed pressure and other hydrocarbons in the feed were investigated. The prepared electrospun nanofibrous supports (ESNS) have smaller fiber diameters in comparison to previously reported works, and with regard to the commercially available materials, contribute to higher water vapor permeation. The results showed that by increasing the feed pressure from 2.5 to 15 bar for the membranes without NPs, the permeance of methane and water vapor was decreased by 8.2 and 29%, respectively. It was also observed that the permeance of heavier hydrocarbons in Pebax 1657 membrane is higher than methane, leading to the increase of H2O/CH4 selectivity and the loss of heavier hydrocarbons. Finally, determining the resistances of the support and selective layers based on the existing empirical relations demonstrated that the total resistance to water vapor transmission had decreased by 75.2% using ESNS instead of microporous supports (MPS). In addition, the contribution of support layer resistances was decreased from 67% in MPS membranes to less than 30% in ESNS ones.
Keywords:Natural Gas Dehydration;Mixed Matrix Membranes;Electrospinning;Sol-gel Method;Water Vapor Transition
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