Regarding LNG refrigerant recovery
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When the LNG plant is shut down, how are refrigerants such as methane, ethylene, propane, and isopentane removed? Are they stored in refrigerant recovery tanks?
Yes, when the LNG plant is shut down, refrigerants such as methane, ethylene, propane, and isopentane are usually transferred to specialized refrigerant recovery tanks for storage. This allows these refrigerants to be stored safely for future use or proper disposal. .
When the unit is shut down, it causes a pressure equalization of the refrigerant in the system, resulting in high pressure at the compressor inlet. To ensure that the inlet pressure does not exceed safe levels during the next startup, it is necessary to release an appropriate amount of refrigerant. Since there is little room for optimization in the current design, the refrigerant is mainly released into flares for combustion; the refrigerant recovery tank is used primarily for condensing and recovering liquid-phase refrigerant so that it can be reused during the next startup, but it is not very effective for recovering gas-phase refrigerant. However, considering the amount of liquid refrigerant in the system, the overall recovery efficiency of the liquid refrigerant can only be described as efforts being made to recover it as much as possible; the actual recovery results are not very satisfactory
What is the most appropriate method for recovering the liquid-phase refrigerant?