Helium enrichment

Helium enrichment from natural gas by membrane solution

Helium gas is widely used in military industry, scientific research, petrochemical, refrigeration, medical, semiconductor, pipeline leak detection, superconducting experiment, metal manufacturing, deep-sea diving, high-precision welding, optoelectronic product and other high- tech industries. At present, China's helium reserves accounts for only about 2% of the world's helium, which is very scarce. Most of the helium used is imported from abroad.

Helium gas is mostly stored in natural gas, and its concentration is typically 0.1-1%. The extraction process is usually cryogenic separation, which is a very energy-consuming process. The gas membrane separation technology, with the feature of high perm-selectivity of helium over methane and nitrogen, can increase the concentration of helium gas more than 10-times, and greatly reduce the heat energy consumption of subsequent process. It is especially suitable for the recovery of helium gas in BOG exhaust air of LNG plant and helium concentration process of low helium gas.

Most available for:

• Helium enrichment from low helium containing natural gas

• Helium enrichment from LNG/ BOG

• Helium enrichment: >10 times,

• Helium recovery: >85%

Benefits:

• Low capital investment

• Improve offshore production economics

• Easy to install and operate with skid-mounted construction and no moving parts.

• Ideal for remote location with limited utilities

Operating characteristic:

• Max. operating temperature: 90℃

• Max. operating pressure different: 100 barg (1470psig)

Scope of supply:

• Pretreatment

• Membrane unit

• Recycle compressor (upon request)

References:

Location: China

End user: Petrochina

Application: Natural gas

Capacity: 24,000 Nm³/day

Operation pressure: 64-68 barg

H_e feed concentration: 542 ppm

H_e enrichment: >10 times 

H_e recovery: >85%

 

Location: China

End user: Erdos

Application: LNG/BOG

Capacity: 380 Nm³/h

H_e concentration in feed: 13.3%

Purities of (H_e+H₂) > 95%

Recovery of (H_e+H₂) > 96%