摘要:
A novel integrated system for the co-production of heat and electricity for residences or commercial buildings is based on the cracking of hydrocarbons to generate hydrogen for a fuel cell. Compared to prior art reforming methods for hydrogen production, the cracking reaction provides an input stream to the fuel cell that is essentially free of CO, a known poison to the anode catalyst in many fuel cell designs, such as PEM fuel cells. The cracking reaction is coupled with an air or steam regeneration cycle to reactivate that cracking catalyst for further use. This regeneration can provide a valuable source of heat or furnace fuel to the system. A novel control method for system adjusts the durations of the cracking and regeneration cycles to optimize the recovery of reaction heat.
摘要:
A hybrid reactor arrangement provides a reactive design that achieves higher acrylonitrile yield and lower catalyst circulating rate. The hybrid reactor design first passes a mixture of reactants and catalyst through a circulating bubbling bed reaction section. Heat exchange coils or other cooling medium in the bubbling bed reactor section maintain temperature in a range that will maximize the selectivity of reactants to the acrylonitrile product. The bubbling bed reactor section provides the initial conversion of the reactant. A circulating fluidized bed reaction zone finishes the conversion of reactants to a high yield under conditions that reduce the occurrence of secondary reactions that could otherwise produce unwanted by-products. The circulating fluidized bed reactor section maintains nearly plug flow conditions that allow continued conversion of unreacted feed components through primary reactions while limiting the time for secondary reactions to continue and diminish the final yield of products. Selectivity and conversion may also be improved by sequential addition of oxygen into the CFB reaction section. The sequential addition of oxygen may occur by the direct injection of an oxygen-containing gas or by the delivery of re-oxidized catalyst particles that are fully recharged with the lattice oxygen necessary for the reaction. Through this method the hybrid reactor provides the typical 5% improvement of higher acrylonitrile product yield from CFB-type reaction zones while reducing the required catalyst circulation by a factor of 10 or more.
摘要:
The present invention provides a process for treating a natural gas stream comprising sending a natural gas stream to at least one membrane unit to produce a permeate stream containing a higher concentration of carbon dioxide and a retentate stream containing a lower concentration of carbon dioxide. Then the retentate stream is sent to an adsorbent bed to remove carbon dioxide and other impurities to produce a natural gas product stream. The regeneration gas stream is sent through the molecular sieve adsorbent bed to desorb the carbon dioxide. In one process flow scheme, the regeneration stream is combined with the permeate stream from the membrane unit. Then the combined stream is sent to an absorbent column to remove carbon dioxide from the permeate stream to produce a second natural gas product stream. In the alternative flow scheme, a second membrane unit is used to improve efficiency.
摘要:
The present invention discloses a novel method to improve the selectivities of polybenzoxazole (PBO) membranes prepared from aromatic polyimide membranes for gas, vapor, and liquid separations. The PBO membranes that were prepared by thermal treating aromatic polyimide membranes containing between 0.05 and 20 wt-% of a poly(styrene sulfonic acid) polymer. These polymers showed up to 95% improvement in selectivity for CO2/CH4 and H2/CH4 separations compared to PBO membranes prepared from corresponding aromatic polyimide membranes without a poly(styrene sulfonic acid) polymer.
摘要:
Processes and apparatuses are provided for preparing liquified natural gas from a natural gas feed that comprises C5 to C7 hydrocarbons and C8 or greater hydrocarbons. An exemplary process includes effecting the preferential adsorption of the C8 or greater hydrocarbons from the natural gas feed over adsorption of hydrocarbons having less than 8 carbon atoms to provide a C8-depleted natural gas stream. The process continues with effecting the preferential adsorption of the C5 to C7 hydrocarbons from the C8-depleted natural gas stream over adsorption of hydrocarbons having less than 5 carbon atoms to form a C5 to C8-depleted natural gas stream. The C5 to C7 hydrocarbons are preferentially adsorbed with higher selectivity and capacity than adsorption of the C5 to C7 hydrocarbons during preferentially adsorbing the C8 or greater hydrocarbons. The C5 to C8-depleted natural gas stream is then liquified.
摘要:
Embodiments of a process for discharging amine byproducts formed in an amine-based solvent are provided. The process comprises the steps of contacting the amine-based solvent with flue gas comprising carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, NOx, SOx, or mixtures thereof to form a carbon dioxide-laden amine-based solvent that contains the amine byproducts. Carbon dioxide is separated from the carbon dioxide-laden amine-based solvent to form a carbon dioxide-depleted amine-based solvent. The amine byproducts from the carbon dioxide-depleted amine-based solvent are fed to an algae source.
摘要:
The present invention involves the use of a multi-stage membrane system for gas, vapor, and liquid separations. In this multi-stage membrane system, high selectivity and high permeance or at least high selectivity polybenzoxazole membranes or cross-linked polybenzoxazole membranes are applied for a pre-membrane or both the pre-membrane and the secondary membrane. A primary membrane can be from conventional glassy polymers. This multi-stage membrane system can reduce inter-stage compression cost, increase product recovery and product purity for gas, vapor, and liquid separations. It can also save the cost compared to the system using all the high cost polybenzoxazole membranes or cross-linked polybenzoxazole membranes.
摘要:
Embodiments of a process for discharging amine byproducts formed in an amine-based solvent are provided. The process comprises the steps of contacting the amine-based solvent with flue gas comprising carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, NOx, SOx, or mixtures thereof to form a carbon dioxide-laden amine-based solvent that contains the amine byproducts. Carbon dioxide is separated from the carbon dioxide-laden amine-based solvent to form a carbon dioxide-depleted amine-based solvent. The amine byproducts from the carbon dioxide-depleted amine-based solvent are fed to an algae source.
摘要:
In the present invention high performance cross-linked polybenzoxazole and polybenzothiazole polymer membranes and methods for making and using these membranes have been developed. The cross-linked polybenzoxazole and polybenzothiazole polymer membranes are prepared by: 1) first synthesizing polyimide polymers comprising pendent functional groups (e.g., —OH or —SH) ortho to the heterocyclic imide nitrogen and cross-linkable functional groups in the polymer backbone; 2) fabricating polyimide membranes from these polymers; 3) converting the polyimide membranes to polybenzoxazole or polybenzothiazole membranes by heating under inert atmosphere such as nitrogen or vacuum; and 4) finally converting the membranes to high performance cross-linked polybenzoxazole or polybenzothiazole membranes by a crosslinking treatment, preferably UV radiation. The membranes can be fabricated into any convenient geometry. The high performance cross-linked polybenzoxazole and polybenzothiazole polymer membranes of the present invention are suitable for a variety of liquid, gas, and vapor separations.
摘要:
The present invention discloses a novel method to improve the selectivities of polybenzoxazole (PBO) membranes prepared from aromatic polyimide membranes for gas, vapor, and liquid separations. The PBO membranes that were prepared by thermal treating aromatic polyimide membranes containing between 0.05 and 20 wt-% of a poly(styrene sulfonic acid) polymer. These polymers showed up to 95% improvement in selectivity for CO2/CH4 and H2/CH4 separations compared to PBO membranes prepared from corresponding aromatic polyimide membranes without a poly(styrene sulfonic acid) polymer.