Huge underground gas reserves, up to 16% of the total reserves, remain unused. The natural gas in these fields is too contaminated for exploitation. With existing technology, cleaning these fields is much too costly. As a result of research done by Ralph van Wissen MSc these fields may in the future become more profitable. In cooperation with Shell, Van Wissen developed a cleaning technique based on the centrifugal separation of gasses. He further built a prototype that can be scaled up to be used in producing natural gas. Van Wissen has obtained a doctorate from the Eindhoven University of Technology on Monday 4 December.
Depleted gas reserves
According to most predictions, the worlds gas reserves will be depleted within this century. Therefore, the discovery of new reserves and the full exploitation of existing reserves are high on the agenda of the big oil and natural gas companies. It is almost impossible to convey the economic value of 16% of the worlds reserves. They represent more that 360 times the annual natural gas production of Shell, Exxon, and BP put together.
Relatively clean gas mixture
These unrecoverable gas reserves are contaminated with CO2 and H2S (hydrogen sulphide). Current cleaning processes, which use selective absorption techniques and membranes technology, are too limited. If the concentration of CO2 and H2S is more than 15%, more energy is lost in these cleaning processes than is gained in natural gas. With the new technique developed by Van Wissen it is possible to clean highly contaminated natural gas (containing 15% to 70% CO2 and H2S) and turn it into a relatively clean gas mixture with only 5% contamination. The resulting energy loss is only a very small percentage. Conventional cleaning processes can be used without much extra costs or waste of energy to further purify this mixture.
Centrifugal gas separator
The trick of the trade is the centrifugal gas separator
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Contact: Xavier Theunissen
x.j.l.theunissen@tue.nl
31-402-474-142
Eindhoven University of Technology
11-Dec-2006