Membrane heat exchangers were used for moisture and heat recovery from a hot and humid natural gas stream in indirect contact with an air stream. A plate membrane module with spiral channels on each side was designed to configure gas and air streams in co-current and counter-current flow. Two types of membranes, a commercial kraft paper, and a laboratory-made thin-film composite membrane, were used as the module core. The thermal efficiency and the water recovery from the humid gas were calculated and compared under different operating conditions. At a unit flow ratio of air/gas, the greatest effectiveness was achieved at a methane flow of 100 cm³/min, but water recovery increased at higher gas flows. For the counterflow configuration, an air/methane flow ratio of 2 was sufficient to achieve the highest total effectiveness and water recovery; however, larger air/gas ratios were beneficial to improve heat and moisture transfer for the co-current configuration. The highest water recovery by the kraft paper and composite membrane was achieved (approximately 15 mgH₂O/cm².h) for the input gas with the highest humidity. The dehumidification performance of kraft paper as a porous and hydrophilic membrane was slightly better than that of the composite membrane containing a dense hydrophilic polymer thin film in most cases. A relatively low heat transfer coefficient was found for the module, which was increased by using higher gas flow rates at higher humidity conditions.

膜式热交换器用于间接与空气流接触的湿热天然气流中的水分和热量回收。设计了在两侧均具有螺旋形通道的板膜模块，以配置气流和气流并流和逆流。两种类型的膜，一种商业牛皮纸和一种实验室制造的薄膜复合膜，被用作组件的核心。计算并比较了不同工况下的热效率和从湿气中回收的水。在空气/气体的单位流量比下，甲烷流量为100 cm ^3时可获得最大的效率/ min，但是水流量越高，水的回收率越高。对于逆流配置，空气/甲烷流量比为2足以实现最高的总效率和水回收率。但是，较大的空气/气体比率有利于改善并流配置的热量和水分传递。通过牛皮纸和复合膜实现的最高水回收率（约15 mgH ₂ O / cm ².h）用于最高湿度的输入气体。在大多数情况下，牛皮纸作为多孔且亲水的膜的除湿性能略好于包含致密的亲水性聚合物薄膜的复合膜的除湿性能。发现该模块的传热系数相对较低，在较高湿度条件下使用较高的气体流速会增加该系数。