Cost-Effective Helium Extraction From Natural Gas
Project number:
21078
Sponsor:
UA Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Academic year:
2020-2021
Project Goal: While minimizing power input, design a system to recover helium from crude natural gas at the nitrogen removal stage of gas refinement.
Helium, a nonrenewable resource, is used in magnetic resonance imaging, gas-leak detection, welding and many other systems. Helium typically is extracted from crude natural gas, but the separation process to purify helium has high energy requirements and is costly, leading to steep annual increases in its price.
This design uses a double separation column cycle and cryogenic distillation techniques to extract helium from natural gas. The process produces three product streams containing nitrogen, helium and methane. To reduce production costs, the system uses vapor-liquid equilibrium within the process streams to mitigate the need for additional external refrigeration cycles.
The team verified efficiency using hand calculations and simulations in ASPEN modeling software. The design achieves recovery of 96% of helium, and the purified natural gas contains less than 2% nitrogen.
Helium, a nonrenewable resource, is used in magnetic resonance imaging, gas-leak detection, welding and many other systems. Helium typically is extracted from crude natural gas, but the separation process to purify helium has high energy requirements and is costly, leading to steep annual increases in its price.
This design uses a double separation column cycle and cryogenic distillation techniques to extract helium from natural gas. The process produces three product streams containing nitrogen, helium and methane. To reduce production costs, the system uses vapor-liquid equilibrium within the process streams to mitigate the need for additional external refrigeration cycles.
The team verified efficiency using hand calculations and simulations in ASPEN modeling software. The design achieves recovery of 96% of helium, and the purified natural gas contains less than 2% nitrogen.
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