Optimization of cryogenic packed bed network for natural gas purification

Natural gas (NG) composition is determined by the geological circumstances of the gas well. Carbon dioxide has been shown to be present in one-third of the global NG reservoirs. The highest concentration of CO2 is in the NG reservoirs is up to 90 mol percent CO2. The carbon dioxide that comes out of the contaminated NG reservoirs needs to be refined (CO2< 2 mol%) before being released to the consumers. Cryogenic technology is an emerging technology used for capturing CO2 from NG and is considered as the most sustainable technology due to eco-friendly process, its high-pressure applications, and low footprint. Reported research from previous several years indicated a range of approaches that could reduce the energy requirements for the cryogenic technology, which makes this technology to be more desirable to researchers. Most of the reported literature shows the use of a single packed bed for the desublimation based cryogenic CO2 capture from NG. However, in a single packed bed the product stream is at very low temperature, and hence cause high energy losses from the system which makes the product unfeasible for the market. Therefore, the proposed research is based on optimization of CO2 capture in cryogenic packed bed network.