【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】Industrial trials of membrane contactor-based natural gas decarbonization technology conducted from 2016 to 2024 were successfully completed

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Give praise and support to the achievements made in China’s chemical engineering technology and equipment; your participation in discussions is the greatest encouragement. **********************【Ten Years of Progress in Chemical Engineering Equipment】Regular updates and summaries are available – feel free to join the discussions: https://bbs.hcbbs.com/thread-3576046-1-1.html (Source: Haichuan Chemical Engineering Forum) ***************** According to news from May 2024, the natural gas decarbonization technology using polytetrafluoroethylene hollow fiber membrane contactors, developed by researchers Kang Guodong and Cao Yiming from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was tested on an industrial scale at a natural gas processing plant belonging to a Malaysian oil company. All performance metrics met the requirements specified in the contract, and the technology passed the acceptance tests by the client. Membrane contactor natural gas decarbonization unit. Photo provided by Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. Natural gas usually contains a certain amount of acidic gases during extraction, and decarburization is a necessary step before its use and further processing. Traditional absorption tower technology suffers from issues such as large size and limited operational flexibility, which restricts its use in space-constrained environments like offshore platforms. A membrane contactor is a coupling technology that combines membranes with traditional absorption processes, leveraging the advantages of both. It features a small equipment size, high separation efficiency, and low operational energy consumption, making it highly suitable for the development and purification of natural gas from marine environments. 　　In recent years, the team has conducted in-depth research on the development of polytetrafluoroethylene hollow fiber membranes and the advancement of membrane contactor application technologies. It has also engaged in long-term international cooperation with **Petroleum Company of Malaysia in the field of natural gas decarbonization, completing laboratory concept verification, pilot tests, and pilot-scale demonstrations. 　　This achievement represents new progress in the cooperation between the two parties; the industrial test unit for natural gas decarbonization using membrane contactors has a natural gas processing capacity of 1000 Nm3/h and an operating pressure of 5.2 MPa. After systematically examining various process parameters such as the composition of the feed gas, pretreatment processes, absorbent loading, and the structure of single-core and multi-core components, continuous operation tests lasting over 2,000 hours were carried out from December 2023 to March 2024. The user acceptance test results show that the membrane contactor operates stably, and the carbon dioxide content in the natural gas produced meets or exceeds the specifications specified in the contract. 　　Currently, Malaysia’s **Petroleum Company has signed a commercialization agreement with the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, aiming to promote the commercial use and industrial application of membrane contactor technology for natural gas decarbonization, and has initiated new cooperation between the two parties in the field of flue gas carbon capture.