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Experimental study on heat transfer caused by feed gas concentration fluctuation in low concentration CBM utilization unit

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Abstract

Due to the restriction of mashgas drainage technology in underground coal mine, a huge number of low concentration coal-bed methane is released into the atmosphere, because of the low methane concentration and the greater difficulty of utilization, causing environmental pollution and waste of resources. If the methane can be separated from coal-bed methane, and liquefied into liquefied natural gas (LNG) product, the waste of resources and realize energy-saving and emission-reduction can be reduced. But affected by the coal mine geological condition and the gas drainage pump, methane concentration of the coal-bed methane has large fluctuation, quite a disadvantage for the liquefaction plant. Low concentration coal-bed gas cryogenic liquid pilot plant is presented in this paper. According to the test data, the fluctuation in raw material gas methane concentrations influence on device performance was studied theoretically, the result is: LNG products of methane recovery is more sensitive to changes in raw material gas of methane concentration, and the product purity of methane with the feed gas methane concentration changed little. In the design of the device, it should be taken into account that the circulation of refrigerant and the flow of raw gas can be adjusted. If the methane content in feed gas increased, operator should reduce the flux of feed gas, in order to maintain methane purity and recovery rate, or increase the yield of LNG product by increasing circulating flux of refrigerant, thereby increasing the economic performance of the device.

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Abbreviations

\(M\) :

Feed gas flux (kmol/h)

\({M}_{V}\) :

Volume flow rate of feed gas under standard condition (0 ℃, 101325 Pa, m3/h, in numerical value, \({M_V} = M \times 22.4\))

\({h}_{f}\) :

Specific enthalpy of feed gas (kJ/kmol)

\({q}_{3}\) :

Cold loss of feed gas for unit flux (145.6 kJ/kmol according to relevant literature [1])

\(N\) :

Mixed refrigerant flux (kmol/h)

\({h}_{MRC-in}\) :

Specific enthalpy of high-pressure mixed refrigerant that entered into the cold box (kmol/h)

\({h}_{LNG}\) :

The specific enthalpy of LNG product (kJ/kmol)

\({h}_{NO}\) :

Specific enthalpy of tail gas of oxygen and nitrogen at the top of the tower (kmol/h)

\({h}_{MRC-out}\) :

Specific enthalpy of low-pressure mixed refrigerant that left the cold box (kmol/h)

\(\varphi\) :

Product rate per feed gas unit

\({\varphi }_{1}\) :

Methane concentration in feed gas

\({\varphi }_{2}\) :

Methane recovery

\({\varphi }_{3}\) :

The purity of methane in LNG product

\({F}_{V}\) :

Volume flow rate of tail gas at the top of the tower under standard condition (0 ℃, 101325 Pa, m3/h)

\(C\) :

Mole fraction of methane in tail gas at the top of the tower

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, CAS for the experimental study.

Funding

This research was funded by the China National Science and Technology Major Project (2016ZX05045-006) and the technology innovation and entrepreneurship fund special project of Tiandi Technology Co., Ltd. (2019-TD-ZD004). The APC was funded by the technology innovation and entrepreneurship fund special project of Tiandi Technology Co., Ltd. (2019-TD-ZD004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. China Coal Technology Engineering Group Chongqing Research Institute, Shapingba District, No.55, Shangqiao village, Chongqing, China

    Lu Xiao & Jinhua Chen

Authors
  1. Lu Xiao
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  2. Jinhua Chen
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Contributions

Methodology, X.L.; formal analysis, X.L.; investigation, X.L.; data curation, X.L.; writing—original draft preparation, X.L.; writing—review and editing, J.C.; conceptualization, J.C.; resources, J.C.; supervision, J.C.; project administration, J.C.; funding acquisition, J.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lu Xiao.

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The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

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Xiao, L., Chen, J. Experimental study on heat transfer caused by feed gas concentration fluctuation in low concentration CBM utilization unit. Heat Mass Transfer 58, 355–363 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-021-03114-w

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