A joint venture has been underway for several years to develop a membrane process to separate CO2 and H2S from high-pressure sour natural gas. Typical feed and product conditions are:

To meet these conditions, the following hollow-fiber membrane material targets have been established:

where selectivity is the ratio of permeabilities. PMCO2 = 13.3 barrer, and membrane skin thickness is expected to be 0.5 pm. Make calculations to show whether the targets can realistically meet the pipeline-gas conditions in a single stage with a reasonable membrane area. Assume a feed-gas flow rate of 10 x 103 scfm (0°C, 1 atm) withcrossflow.

Transcribed Image Text:

Pipeline Gas Feed Gas Pressure, psia Composition, mol%: CH4 1,000 980 97.96 70 0.04 H2S 10 2.00 CO2 20