The possibility to extract bio-SNG from the product gas obtained from gasification of biofuel with a pressurized, oxygen-blown CFB gasifier connected to a heat and power station using only membrane separation was theoretically investigated. Selling the methane, instead of feeding it to the plant’s turbine(s), might mean that overall profitability is increased. The considered product gas mainly consists of H2, CO, CO2, H2O and CH4. By doing a literature review different membrane types were studied and it was concluded that for now only polymers may be of interest, due to high production costs for other membranes or for the fact they are still at laboratory stage. It was further determined though that neither membranes made of glassy polymers (fixed polymer chains) nor rubbery polymers (mobile polymer chains) are probably capable of separating the methane from the other gas components on their own. Glassy membranes will most likely have trouble separating CO from CH4 due to similarity in size of the two molecules, while a separation using rubbery membranes will result in at least H2 accompanying the methane. The rubbery polymers’ incapability of separating H2 from CH4 despite greatly differing condensation temperatures between the two components can be explained by the fact that rubbery membranes, apart from condensation temperature, also separate according to molecular diffusivity. If a multistep process with recirculation that combines both glassy and rubbery polymers is applied, satisfying results may be obtained. This, however, builds on a higher separation of CH4 and CO with rubbery membranes than condensation data indicates and needs to be further investigated with help of real life experiments and more advanced computation programs than used in this study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mdh-28796 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Nilsson, Emil |
| Publisher | Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för ekonomi, samhälle och teknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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