Applied Thermal Engineering 64 (2014) 139e146

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Design and analysis of a small-scale natural gas liquefaction process

adopting single nitrogen expansion with carbon dioxide pre-cooling
Zongming Yuan, Mengmeng Cui*, Ying Xie, Chunlin Li
School of Petroleum Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, PR China

h i g h l i g h t s

A novel small-scale liquefaction process used in stranded gas is designed.

The adaptability of this process under different pressure, temperature and compositions of feed gas is studied.

The exergy analysis of main equipment in the process is analyzed.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: With the growth of energy consumption and environmental protection concerns, it is of enormous
Received 29 September 2013 economic and environmental values for the development of stranded gas. As a means for exploitation
Accepted 6 December 2013 and transportation of stranded gas to market, a novel small-scale liquefaction process adopting single
Available online 19 December 2013
nitrogen expansion with carbon dioxide pre-cooling is put up with in this paper. Taking unit energy
consumption as the target function, Aspen HYSYS is employed to simulate and optimize the process to
Keywords:
achieve the liquefaction rate of 0.77 with unit energy consumption of 9.90 kW/kmol/h. Furthermore, the
Liquefaction process
adaptability of this process under different pressure, temperature and compositions of feed gas is
Single nitrogen expansion
Carbon dioxide pre-cooling
studied. Based on the optimization results, the exergy losses of main equipment in the process are
Unit energy consumption evaluated and analyzed in details. With compact device, safety operation, simple capability, this lique-
Optimization faction process proves to be suitable for the development of small gas reserves, satellite distribution
Exergy analysis fields of gas or coalbed methane fields.

2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
An expanding population and economic growth are main causes
of increasing global energy demand [1]. World energy consumption
increases from 524 quadrillion Btu in 2010 to 630 quadrillion Btu in
2020 and 820 quadrillion Btu in 2040, with a 30-year increase of 56
percent [2]. Among those, natural gas, an environmentally attrac-
tive fuel compared with other hydrocarbon fuels, continues to be
favored due to abundant resources and robust production. To
satisfy such a demand of the natural gas, a number of gas fields are
under development such as scattered onshore and offshore gas
Abbreviations: LNG, Liquefied Natural Gas; CNG, Compressed Natural Gas; NGH,
Natural Gas Hydrate; GTL, gas to liquid; GTW, gas to wire; C3/MRC, mixed refrig-
erant cycle liquefaction process with propane pre-cooling; N2eCH4, N2eCH4
expander cycle process; N2eCO2, N2 expander cycle process with CO2 pre-cooling.
* Corresponding author. School of Petroleum Engineering, Southwest Petroleum
University, 8# Xindu Road, Xindu District, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, PR
China. Tel.: þ86 28 83033348; fax: þ86 28 83033248.
E-mail address: cuimm619@163.com (M. Cui).
fields, associated gas from oil fields, coalbed methane from coal
mines, which were vented to atmosphere or flared due to the status
of technologies and economic situations once upon a time, result-
ing in great loss of energy and damage to the environment.
Stranded gas refers to some gas resources remote from markets
or pipelines, or other gas resources close to markets whose reserves
are too small to be piped economically [3], in other words, the gas
in discovered or identified fields that is not currently commercially
producible for either physical or economic reasons [4]. Based on the
data of IHS International Field File (2008a), E.D. Attanasi and P.A.
Freeman [4e7] have estimated the world total recoverable stranded
gas volumes both in gas and oil fields except North America
(Table 1), the development of which is quite likely the most cost-
effective means for quickly increasing gas production capacity.
Benefited from the technological advance of natural gas in-
dustry, there exist three options currently for stranded gas
exploitation and transportation to markets. They are 1) gas to
transitory medium by volume reduction such as LNG (Liquefied
Natural Gas) [8e11], CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) [12], and NGH
(Natural Gas Hydrate) [13,14], 2) conversion to other products (GTL)

1359-4311/$ e see front matter
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2013.12.011
140 Z. Yuan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 64 (2014) 139e146

Table 1 mixed refrigerant liquefaction process [19e21]; expander lique-

Volumes, in Tcf, of recoverable stranded gas in producing oil and gas fields. faction process [22,23]. The comparison among these liquefaction
Country situation Stranded gas Stranded gas Total processes have been conducted by lots of experts on energy con-
in gas fields in oil fields sumption, exergy analysis and economic performance. Some
South America 145 55 200 selected mixed refrigerant process for the best choice of energy
Europe 119 20 139 consumption consideration [24,25], while some recommended the
Middle East 304 584 888 expander cycle [23]. Nevertheless, the recent research has indi-
Africa 219 100 319
cated that nitrogen expansion [26] is the most adaptive process
South Asia 57 3 60
East Asia 171 26 197 combing energy consumption, economic performance, safety,
Transcaucasia 301 44 345 sensitivity to motion and operability into consideration.
Southeast Asia and Oceania 433 43 476 Adopting a pre-cooling process with propane, propylene or
Russia 864 90 954
carbon dioxide, which is a more efficient refrigeration method in
Grand total of all regions 2612 966 3578
except North America
the high temperature range, can consequently reduce power con-
sumption efficiently [27e30]. Being safe, non-toxic, environmen-
tally friendly, and non-combusted, carbon dioxide brings great
[15,16], and 3) conversion to other energy form such as electric convenience for production and storage, in favor of reducing device
power and transmission by subsea cable to shore (GTW) [8,16]. As a size and capital expenditures. What’s more, compared with the
means of transporting natural gas to consumers, LNG has a history hydrocarbon refrigerants used for natural gas liquefaction, carbon
of almost 100 years. In the last decade, not only has there been a dioxide can achieve the same cooling effect, with incomparable
proliferation of liquefaction and regasification plants, but also a rise advantage of being easy to obtain, resulting in low price.
in LNG production and transport capacity has increased [17]. This paper puts forward a novel natural gas liquefaction process
Whereby, the small-scale natural gas liquefaction process has got adopting single nitrogen expansion with carbon dioxide pre-
its rapid evolution and attracted the attentions of the investors for cooling in use of small gas reserves, satellite distribution fields of
the development of stranded gas, with advantages of low invest- gas or coalbed methane fields. Taking unit energy consumption as
ment, simple and compact process, start-stop convenience, strong the major index for analysis, the optimized parameters of the
mobility and mature progress. liquefaction process are calculated to achieve the liquefaction rate
Several processes have been reported for natural gas liquefac- of 0.77 with unit energy consumption of 9.90 kW/kmol/h. Based on
tion, mainly in three types: cascade liquefaction process [18]; the results, the effects of different feed gas conditions on unit

Fig. 1. The process of single nitrogen expansion with carbon dioxide pre-cooling.
 Z. Yuan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 64 (2014) 139e146 141

energy consumption and liquefaction rate are studied further. 3. Process optimization
Exergy analysis is applied to evaluate the magnitude of exergetic
losses in each component of the liquefaction process. 3.1. Phase equilibrium equations

Phase equilibrium equation is the basis for calculating physical

2. Process design parameters in the liquefaction process. PR equation and LKP
equation are selected for the fluid package in simulation [22,32].
Simulation and optimization of the process is conducted by The PengeRobinson Equation of State applies functionality to
Aspen HYSYS [31] software, as is shown in Fig. 1. some specific component to component interaction parameters,
which can be used in the calculation of phase equilibrium. It is
2.1. Process description given as below:

To simplify the computation and analysis, the pretreatment for RT a

p ¼  (1)
feed gas is omitted here, by which water, most heavy hydrocarbons V  b VðV þ bÞ  bðV  bÞ
and some acidic gases are removed. The process includes 3 parts:
the liquefaction of feed gas, the single refrigeration cycle of nitro- where
gen expansion and the vapor compression refrigeration cycle of
carbon dioxide pre-cooling.
X
N X
N  0:5  
The purified feed gas is pre-cooled with carbon dioxide in HEX- a ¼ xi xj ai aj 1  kij (2)
102 to the heavy hydrocarbons separation temperature for the i¼1 j¼1
separation of the heavy hydrocarbons in a liquidevapor separator
(V-101), after which the liquid heavy hydrocarbons flow through a
throttle to provide cold energy for HEX-102, as well as the vapor X
N
part is cooled further with nitrogen in HEX-103. Following this b ¼ xi bi (3)
process the pressure of the vapor is reduced, and finally the LNG i¼1

product is separated out in a liquidevapor separator (V-102). The

where P is pressure, R is gas constant, T is temperature, V is specific
flash gas from the separator is diverted successively into HEX-103
volume, a, b are the constants relating to the gas compositions, x is
and HEX-102 to recover its cold energy, after which this part of
mole fraction of a certain component, k is binary interaction
gas can be used as regeneration gas of the molecular sieve dehy-
coefficient.
dration process for feed gas pretreatment.
Also, the PR equation can be expressed in the form of
In the nitrogen expansion cycle, nitrogen firstly undergoes two
compression factor:
stages of compression and cooling firstly by using water-coolers,
and then by carbon dioxide pre-cooling in HEX-102. Afterward it    
undergoes a single stage of expansion to a low pressure and Z 3  ð1  BÞZ 2 þ A  3B2  2B Z  AB  B2  B3 ¼ 0 (4)
produces cold energy for HEX-103 and HEX-102 to achieve the
cycle.
where A and B are the dimensionless attractive and repulsive term
The purpose of the carbon dioxide refrigerant system is to
parameters determined by
provide additional cooling for the process to reduce the energy
consumption, in which the common vapor compression refrigera-
tion cycle with regeneration is utilized. After the pre-cooling of feed aP
A ¼ (5)
gas and nitrogen, the cold energy of throttled carbon dioxide is ðRTÞ2
used to pre-cool carbon dioxide itself in HEX-101, which contrib-
utes to reduce power consumption of the cycle.

Table 2
2.2. Constraint conditions
Mole fractions of the feed gas and other parameters in the process.

Initially, some parameters are set or assumed as the basis of the Parameters Value Notes

process analysis. To facilitate the comparison between the former Feed gas pressure 4800 kPa [22,33]
ones and this process, part of the data is borrowed from the Feed gas temperature 32  C [22]
Feed gas flow rate 4 kmol/h [22]
reference [22]. In the feed gas liquefaction process, the pressure of
Feed gas mole fraction components CH4 0.82 [22]
the feed gas p101 is 4800 kPa, the temperature t101 is set to 32  C, the C2H6 0.112
molar flow rate qn101 is assumed at 4 kmol/h, the pressure of the C3H8 0.04
LNG storage tank p108 is 200 kPa, the same as the temperature of i-C4H10 0.012
heavy hydrocarbon by throttling p105, while the temperature for n-C4H10 0.009
LNG storage pressure 200 kPa [22]
cold energy recovering backflow flashed gas t106 and t112 is set to Temperature for cold energy 30  C
30  C. recovering backflow flashed gas
Detailed specifications used here are as follows (Table 2): Pressure drop in heat 0 kPa Simplify the
refrigerant temperature after the coolers is 35  C; the minimum exchanger and water-cooler process

Temperature after water cooler 35 C
approach temperature in the main heat exchanger is 2  C; pressure
Ambient temperature 25  C
ratio of each compressor is 2e3; the adiabatic efficiency of all The adiabatic efficiency of compressor 85% [28]
compressors is 85% [28]; the adiabatic efficiency of expander is 80% The adiabatic efficiency of expander 80% [28]
[28]. To simplify the simulation process and analysis, the pressure Pressure ratio of each compressor 2e3
drop of each water-cooler and heat exchanger is assumed to be The minimum approach 2 C
temperature of heat exchanger
0 kPa.
142 Z. Yuan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 64 (2014) 139e146

In brief, the objective function of process optimization can be

bP expressed as
B ¼ (6)  
RT Wnet
f ðXÞ ¼ min (8)
where Z is a compression factor, A and B are the coefficients relating qLNG
to the gas state parameters.
The LeeeKeslerePlocker equation is an accurate general method where Wnet indicates the net energy consumption of refrigerant
for non- polar substances and mixtures, which can be used in the compression and expansion, qLNG represents the molar flow of the
calculation of enthalpy and entropy of mixed components. It is produced LNG.
given as below: X X
Wnet ¼ Wcompressor  Wexpander (9)
ð0Þ u  ðrÞ ð0Þ

Z ¼ Z þ Z Z (7) With independent variables in the form of vector as follows
uðrÞ
where u is an acentric factor, 0 and r signify the relevant parame- X ¼ ½ t102 t206 t111 p202 p302 T (10)
ters of simple and reference liquids.
Subjected to

min approachðHEXðiÞÞ  2 ði ¼ 101; 102; 103Þ (11)

3.2. Optimization of the key parameters
Unit energy consumption is a major measure for the evalua-
tion of a certain liquefaction process, which is usually handled as
the objective function of process optimization. Many factors in-
fluence the performance of the process, such as the separation
temperature of heavy hydrocarbons t102, the temperature of pre-
cooled nitrogen t206, the backflow temperature of boil-offed gas
after HEX-103 t111, the outlet pressure of refrigerant compressors
p202, p302.
In this case, the optimization problem is finding out the opti-
mum parameter values to make the power consumption lowest,
under the constraint conditions in the following:
(A) The minimum temperature difference between the hot and
cold areas of fluid in heat exchangers cannot be less than
2  C.
(B) The ratio of the outlet pressure and the inlet pressure of each
compressor is between 2 and 3.

p202 p204 p302 p304
; ; ; ˛½2; 3 (12)
p201 p203 p301 p303
3.3. Optimization results
The steady-state optimizer in HYSYS is employed to conduct the
optimization of this process, and the optimal results are shown in
detail in Table 3. Through the expansion refrigeration of nitrogen
and the compression-throttling pre-cooling of carbon dioxide, this
process achieves the liquefaction of 0.77, with relatively low unit
energy consumption of 9.90 kW/kmol/h, compared with the two
used processes in Japan and Indiana, USA [33].
As the key device of the process, heat exchanger HEX-102 re-
alizes the preliminary refrigeration of nitrogen and feed gas by use
of carbon dioxide and the reflux gas. The hot and cold composite
curves of HEX-102 are shown in Fig. 2. The relationship between

Table 3
Optimization results of the process.

Index Material Temperature/ C Pressure/ Molar flow/ Molar enthalpy/ Molar entropy/ Energy Heat flow/
stream kPa kmol/h kJ/kmol kJ/kmol  C stream kJ/h

The liquefaction of feed gas part 101 32 4800 4 7.862eþ004 154.8 e e

102 30 4800 4 8.258eþ004 140.1
103 30 4800 3.663 8.028eþ004 143.2
104 30 4800 0.337 1.705eþ005 106.5
105 78.77 200 0.337 1.075eþ005 116.4
106 30 200 0.337 9.2eþ004 182.9
107 132.1 4800 3.663 9.099eþ004 88.52
108 150.9 200 3.663 9.099eþ004 90.7
109-LNG 150.9 200 3.075 9.345eþ004 79.91
110 150.9 200 0.588 7.811eþ004 147.2
111 60 200 0.588 7.5eþ004 166.2
112 30 200 0.588 7.187eþ004 178.5
The single refrigeration cycle 201 33 350.5 21.6 209.9 138.5 Q-201 7.388eþ004
of nitrogen expansion part 202 150 950 21.6 3662 139.7 Q-202 7.466eþ004
203 35 950 21.6 239 130.3 W-201 4.351eþ004
204 149.2 2500 21.6 3603 131.5 W-202 7.455eþ004
205 35 2500 21.6 155.4 122 W-203 7.266eþ004
206 60 2500 21.6 2759 100.7
207 137.8 350.5 21.6 4773 114.7
208 78.7 350.5 21.6 3043 125.3
The refrigeration cycle of 301 22 603.9 1 3.942eþ005 156.6 Q-301 3435
carbon dioxide pre-cooling part 302 113.2 1800 1 3.908eþ005 158 Q-302 4283
303 35 1800 1 3.942eþ005 148 W-301 3430
304 115.1 4524 1 3.914eþ005 149.1 W-302 2800
305 35 4524 1 3.957eþ005 136.7
306 20 4524 1 3.967eþ005 133.2
307 40.7 603.9 1 3.967eþ005 146.9
308 4.3 603.9 1 3.952eþ005 152.9
 Z. Yuan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 64 (2014) 139e146
Fig. 2. The hot and cold composite curves for the LNG heat exchanger HEX-102.
heat flow and temperature of the hot composite side is consistent
with the trend of the cold side, the same as the relevance between
UA and temperature. The hot composite curve matches well with
the cold one, resulting in relatively low exergy loss. The tempera-
ture difference of the hot and cold composite side remains in a
reasonable limit, with the pinch point of 2.1  C.
3.4. Process comparison
As is shown in Table 4, the comparison among mixed refrigerant
cycle liquefaction process with propane pre-cooling (C3/MRC), N2e
CH4 expander cycle process (N2eCH4), New MRC proposed by Cao
Wensheng [33] and N2 expander cycle process with CO2 pre-
cooling (N2eCO2) is presented. The composition of refrigerant of
each process is shown in Table 5.
Through comparative analysis of the four small-scale natural
gas liquefaction processes, it is evident that C3/MRC has the
lowest unit energy consumption, with the most complex equip-
ment. The N2eCH4 expander cycle process has the simplest
process, resulting in the highest unit energy consumption. The
New MRC process proposed by Cao Wensheng combines the brief
structure of N2eCH4 process with the low energy consumption
feature of C3/MRC process, with an inevitable shortcoming of
operational intricacy for the preparation and storage of refrig-
erant. The unit energy consumption of N2 expander cycle process
with CO2 pre-cooling is much lower than that of the N2eCH4
expander cycle process with structurally similar key equipment.
Simultaneously, there is no need for the preparation of refrig-
erant, bringing great operation simplicity of process. What’s
more, the non-hydrocarbon refrigerants of nitrogen and carbon
dioxide are employed for storage safety, which prevails over the
other processes.
4. Study of process performance
To have a better understanding of the process adaptation of
different feed gas, the relationship between unit energy con-
sumption, liquefaction rate and feed gas conditions is analyzed.
143
4.1. Effect of feed gas pressure
The feed gas pressure p101 has a great influence on the unit
energy consumption and liquefaction rate of the process. The ef-
fects of the feed gas pressure on the process performance are
shown in Fig. 3. The unit energy consumption is reduced as the feed
gas pressure increases, which is on account of that more cooling
capacity for HEX-102 and HEX-103 is gained with larger pressure
drop of the reflux gas, resulting in a relatively smaller use of
refrigerant of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, further reducing the
power consumption of the compressors. At the same time, a drop
for LNG production is generated, that is to say, a decline of the
liquefaction rate. Thus, the feed gas pressure must be adjusted
according to production requirements to optimize the unit energy
consumption and liquefaction rate of the process.
4.2. Effect of feed gas temperature
The feed gas temperature plays an important role in unit energy
consumption of the process. There is a significant increase of the
unit energy consumption as the feed gas temperature grows. That is
because the refrigerant flow rate increases to provide more cooling
energy for feed gas through heat exchangers as the feed gas tem-
perature increases, inevitably leading to an increase of the power
consumption of the compressors. On the contrary, as it can be seen
from Fig. 4, the feed gas temperature has nothing to do with the
liquefaction rate of the process, which is only determined by the
temperature after heat exchangers as the feed gas temperature
changes. Notwithstanding, the lower the feed gas temperature, the
smaller the unit energy consumption of the process, whether the
fees gas need to be pre-cooled for a lower temperature should be
considered by a comprehensive evolution of a certain raw gas
processing plant.
4.3. Effect of feed gas composition
The changes of the unit energy consumption and liquefaction
rate along with the methane percentage of the feed gas are shown
in Fig. 5. The unit energy consumption varies with the methane
percentage of feed gas, the increase of which will directly
contribute to less heavy hydrocarbons produced by separator V-
101, and more pre-cooled feed gas for further refrigerated by HEX-
103, resulting in an increase of LNG flow rate as well as the power
consumption of compressors. As the methane content varies from
70% to 95%, the unit energy consumption of the process maintains
from 9.2 to 9.8 kW/kmol/h, and the highest point is achieved at
the methane content of about 88%. Although the energy con-
sumption changes with the methane percentage of feed gas, this
process shows good adaptability for gas fields of different methane
content.
5. Exergy analysis
Exergy analysis is a powerful tool for analyzing both the quan-
tity and the quality of energy utilization, providing an indicator that
points in which direction efforts should concentrate to improve the
performance of the thermodynamic system [34].
5.1. Theory
Exergy is a measure of the maximum amount of useful energy
that can be extracted from a process stream when it is brought to
equilibrium with its surroundings in a hypothetical reversible
process.
144 Z. Yuan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 64 (2014) 139e146

Table 4
Comparison of the optimization results of the three liquefaction processes.

Process C3/MRC N2eCH4 New N2eCO2

parameters [22,33] [22,33] MRC [33]

Flow rate 4.000 4.000 4.000 4.000

of feed gas
/kmol/h
Flow rate 14.782 36.54 16.092 22.6
of refrigerant
/kmol/h
Load of water 7.06 80.09 45.47 43.47
coolers/kW
Power 27.8484 63.648 29.34 42.72
consumption of
compressors/
kW
Power of e 13.515 e 12.10
expander/
kW
Liquefaction 0.96 0.90 0.90 0.77
rate
Unit energy 7.26 17.68 8.15 9.90 Fig. 3. The curves of the unit energy consumption and liquefaction rate versus p101.
consumption/
kW/kmol/h
Number of key Compressor 5 2 2 4 losses of the equipment, Ein is the inlet exergy of the equipment,
equipment Expander 0 1 0 1
Eout the outlet exergy of the equipment, T0 the ambient tempera-
Heat 6 3 3 3
exchanger ture, Sin the inlet entropy of the equipment, Sout the outlet entropy
Separator 6 2 4 2 of the equipment, Hin the inlet enthalpy of the equipment, Hout the
Valve 7 2 4 2 outlet enthalpy of the equipment, Wc the power consumption of
the compressor, We the exporting work of the expander, hc the
ambient efficiency of the compressor, hex the ambient efficiency of
At steady-state conditions, the kinetic and potential energy ef-
the expander, Q the exchanged heat flow of the water cooler, DT the
fects can be neglected. The exergy of a stream, Ex, is therefore
water temperature difference of the cooler, Twin the temperature of
expressed as
water into the water cooler, Twout the temperature of water out of
Ex ¼ ðH  T0 SÞT;P  ðH  T0 SÞT0 ;P0 (13) the water cooler.
Based on the optimization results, the exergy analysis of
where H and S are the enthalpy and entropy of a certain steam equipment in the liquefaction of feed gas part, the single refriger-
respectively, the subscript 0 represents the equilibrium index, and ation cycle of nitrogen expansion part, and the carbon dioxide pre-
T0 and P0 are normally considered as the ambient temperature and cooling part is conducted, as is shown in Table 7. The simple pro-
pressure. cedure of the liquefaction part of feed gas results in only 16.15% of
When matter is taken from one state to another via a hypo- the overall exergetic losses. It is obvious that most of the exergy
thetical reversible process, the reference terms cancel out and the losses, almost 80.27% of the total losses, come from the single
change in exergy is given by refrigeration cycle of nitrogen expansion part, in that nitrogen has
undertaken the dominating function of refrigeration, leading to
DEx ¼ ðH  T0 SÞstate 2  ðH  T0 SÞstate 1 (14) large amount of irreversibility and deviation from ideal case. The
main reason for the relatively low exergy losses in carbon dioxide
This change in exergy represents the minimum amount of work pre-cooling part is the small circulation volume of it.
to be added or removed to change from state 1 to state 2 when
there is an increase or decrease in internal energy or enthalpy
resulting from the change.

5.2. Exergy analysis of equipment

The equipment including the heat exchanger, compressor,

expander, water cooler, and valves causes irreversibility of the
process, leading to exergy losses. Exergy analysis is applied to
evaluate the magnitude of exergetic losses in each element of the
liquefaction process.
Li et al. [26] have introduced the exergy losses equations of the
equipment, as is shown in Table 6.where DEx represents the exergy

Table 5
The composition of refrigerant in the three processes.

Process N2 CO2 CH4 C2H6 C3H8 i-C4H10 n-C4H10 i-C5H12 n-C5H12

C3/MRC 5 e 41 34 20 e e e e
N2eCH4 56 e 44 e e e e e e
New MRC 5.2 e 24.6 29.5 20.4 5.5 4.8 5.1 4.9
N2eCO2 95 5 e e e e e e e
Fig. 4. The curves of the unit energy consumption and liquefaction rate versus t101.
 Z. Yuan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 64 (2014) 139e146 145

Fig. 6. The exergy losses of equipment.

consumption as the objective function of process optimization, this

process achieves the liquefaction of 0.77, with unit energy con-
Fig. 5. The curves of the unit energy consumption and liquefaction rate versus the
sumption of 9.90 kW/kmol/h. Compared with other three small-
methane percentage of feed gas.
scale natural gas liquefaction processes, the process is compact in
device, safe in operation and there is no need for the preparation of
Table 6 refrigerants. Based on the optimization results, the effects of
The equations of exergy losses. different feed gas conditions on unit energy consumption and
Device Equation liquefaction rate are studied further to prove good adaptability of
P P P P feed gas pressure, temperature and compositions of the process.
Heat exchanger DEx ¼ Ein  Eout ¼ T0 ð Sout  Sin Þ
Compressor DEx ¼ Ein  Eout þ Wc ¼ (Hout  Hin)(1/hc  1) þ T0(Sout  Sin) Furthermore, the exergy analysis is employed to the main equip-
Expander DEx ¼ Ein  Eout  We ¼ (Hin  Hout)(1  hex) þ T0(Sout  Sin) ment of heat exchangers, compressors, expander, water coolers,
Water cooler DEx ¼ Ein  Eout ¼ T0(Sout  Sin) þ T0Q/DTlnTwout/Twin and valves, indicating that compressors occupy the largest pro-
Valve DEx ¼ Ex,in  Ex,out ¼ T0(Sout  Sin) portion of total exergy analysis. The measures to reduce exergy
losses of compressors are also discussed. This process is a good
option in use of small gas reserves, satellite distribution fields of gas
The exergy losses of equipment in the process are calculated
or coalbed methane fields.
according to the exergy equilibrium equations, which are shown in
Fig. 6. It is apparent that compressors occupy the largest proportion
of the entire exergy losses, more than 45%, which can be improved Acknowledgements
by high efficiency compressors with multi-stage compression and
inter-stage cooling to reduce compressor power consumption and This work is supported by oil and gas storage and transportation
the irreversible extent of the process. engineering department in Southwest Petroleum University, China.
Benefit from the utilizing of the cold energy of flash gas, heat
exchangers show relatively low exergy losses compared with other References
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<http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/>.
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