Recently, the Teflon hollow fiber membrane contactor natural gas decarbonization technology developed by Kang Guodong and Cao Yiming, researchers of the New Membrane Technology Research Group of the Energy Conservation and Environmental Research Department of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, completed industrial tests in the Petronas Natural Gas Treatment Plant, and all indicators met the contract requirements, which passed the acceptance of the application unit.
Natural gas is usually accompanied by a certain amount of acidic gas during the extraction process, and decarbonization is a necessary step before the use and further processing of natural gas. Traditional absorption tower technology has problems such as large volume and low operational flexibility, which limits its application in space limited situations such as offshore platforms. Membrane contactors are a coupling technology between membranes and traditional absorption processes, integrating their respective advantages. They have advantages such as small equipment volume, high separation efficiency, and low operating energy consumption, making them very suitable for the development and purification of natural gas in marine environments.
In recent years, the teams of Kang Guodong and Cao Yiming have conducted in-depth research on the development of polytetrafluoroethylene hollow fiber membranes and the application technology of membrane contactors. They have also established long-term international cooperation with Petronas in the field of natural gas decarbonization, and have completed laboratory concept validation, small-scale testing, and pilot scale demonstration. This work is a new progress achieved by both parties in cooperation. The industrial test device for natural gas decarbonization using membrane contactors has a natural gas processing capacity of 1000Nm3/h and an operating pressure of 5.2MPa. After systematically examining multiple process conditions such as raw gas composition, pretreatment process, absorbent loading, single core and multi-core component structures, more than 2000 hours of continuous operation tests were conducted from December 2023 to March 2024. The user acceptance results show that the performance of the membrane contactor is stable, and the CO2 content in the natural gas of the product is better than the contract indicators.
At present, Petronas has signed a commercial agreement with Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, dedicated to the commercial promotion and industrial application of membrane contactor natural gas decarbonization technology, and has initiated new cooperation in the field of flue gas carbon capture.
