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Oxygen and methane enrichment — a comprison of module arrangements in gas permeation
Author(s) -
Rautenbach Robert,
Dahm Wolfgang
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
chemical engineering and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-4125
pISSN - 0930-7516
DOI - 10.1002/ceat.270100131
Subject(s) - permeation , methane , cascade , biogas , chemistry , process engineering , oxygen , membrane , gas separation , air separation , stage (stratigraphy) , extraction (chemistry) , chemical engineering , waste management , nuclear engineering , chromatography , engineering , organic chemistry , biochemistry , paleontology , biology
In the separation of gaseous mixtures by gas permeation, it is in some cases impossible to achieve the desired product quality in a single stage and, therefore, several stages may be necessary. Multistage processes can be implemented by membrane modules arranged in the form of a cascade or by a membrane column design. On the basis of an economic analysis, this paper discusses different possible module arrangements for 2 cases, i.e. the enrichment of oxygen from air and the separation of methane from biogas. Present calculations indicate that, in the first case, two‐stage cascades with or without recycle and, in the second case, one‐stage cascade without recycle constitute the optimum module arrangements. However, depending on the selling price of the methane enriched gas, one‐ or two‐stage cascades with recycle have to be considered. Finally, It was shown that, in the permeation of non‐ideal gases, the Joule‐Thomson effect has to be taken into account.