Comprehensive comparison of small-scale natural gas liquefaction processes using brazed plate heat exchangers
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Jitan WU, Yonglin JU
Comprehensive comparison of small-scale natural gas liquefaction processes using brazed plate heat exchangers
© Higher Education Press 2020
Abstract The brazed plate heat exchanger (BPHE) has some advantages over the plate-fin heat exchanger (PFHE) when used in natural gas liquefaction processes, such as the convenient installation and transportation, as well as the high tolerance of carbon dioxide (CO2) impurities. However, the BPHEs with only two channels cannot be applied directly in the conventional liquefaction processes which are designed for multi-stream heat exchangers. Therefore, the liquefaction processes using BPHEs are different from the conventional PFHE processes. In this paper, four different liquefaction processes using BPHEs are optimized and comprehensively compared under respective optimal conditions. The processes are compared with respect to energy consumption, economic performance, and robustness. The genetic algorithm (GA) is applied as the optimization method and the total revenue requirement (TRR) method is adopted in the economic analysis. The results show that the modified single mixed refrigerant (MSMR) process with part of the refrigerant flowing back to the compressor at low temperatures has the lowest specific energy consumption but the worst robustness of the four processes. The MSMR with fully utilization of cold capacity of the refrigerant shows a satisfying robustness and the best economic performance. The research in this paper is helpful for the application of BPHEs in natural gas liquefaction processes. Keywords liquefied natural gas, brazed plate heat exchanger, energy consumption, economic performance, robustness
Received Jan. 17, 2019; accepted Mar. 19, 2020; online Nov. 10, 2020
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Jitan WU, Yonglin JU ( ) Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China E-mail: [email protected]
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Introduction
Natural gas has been the fossil energy resource with the fastest growth recently as a relatively clean energy resource [1]. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is widely used in many countries around the world primarily as a mode to transport natural gas [2]. With the worldwide application of natural gas, the LNG industry is booming since LNG has been an important solution for energy security in many countries where it is not economical to use pipeline transmission of natural gas [3]. Furthermore, LNG trade is forecasted to meet one-third the natural gas demand in the next three decades [4]. As a result, the research of the performance of the LNG process is drawing more and more attention and the equipment applied in the LNG process are also well studied by many research groups. Nguyen et al. [5] recently compared three small-scale LNG systems based on energy and exergy assessment and found that the mixed refrigerant (MR) process is more efficient than the expander-based ones. Khan and Lee [6] optimized the single mixed refrigerant (SMR) process with the help of the particle swarm paradigm and successfully
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