Title:
PSA system design for separation of ethylene from light hydrocarbon gas streams
PSA system design for separation of ethylene from light hydrocarbon gas streams
Author(s)
Sen, Trisha
Advisor(s)
Realff, Matthew J.
Kawajiri, Yoshiaki
Kawajiri, Yoshiaki
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Abstract
The primary goal of this study is the synthesis, design, modeling and simulation of gas adsorption separation processes. In particular, those where differences in the transport or reaction of gas species in materials are important for separation as opposed to equilibrium adsorption properties. Two applications are used for illustration, purification of ethylene from a mixture of light hydrocarbon gases, and the capture of CO2 from air. Chapter 2 is primarily focused on quantifying the differences in optimal performance of a traditional packed bed to that of a novel hollow fiber bed. The hollow fiber bed showed a 5 times higher productivity (for similar product purity and recovery). Chapter 3 (equal contribution from Dr. L. A. Darunte - experiments) is concerned with understanding the impact of mass transfer on separation performance of MMEN-Mg2(dopbpdc) for CO2 capture. We showed that the co-operative insertion mechanism which provides thermodynamic advantages to this material, significantly hampers its separation process kinetics. Chapter 4 (equal contribution from W. You – molecular simulations) is concerned with understanding the impact of binding energy of M-BTC MOFs for ethylene-ethane separation. Temperature was shown to have a significant non-monotonic impact on process performance. We also found mixed metal MM’-BTCs that can outperform the constituent pure metal M-BTCs. Chapter 5 is concerned with understanding the impact of adsorbent property parameters on kinetic separation at a PSA scale (packed bed), therefore bridging the gap between lab scale experiments and PSA design. An illumination algorithm (SAIL) was able to efficiently predict similar results with greater computational efficiency. Overall, my thesis advances the understanding of (a) the impact of bed configuration on PSA performance (b) how inherent material property parameters translate to a process scale performance.
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Date Issued
2020-05-22
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Text
Resource Subtype
Dissertation