Reverse Selective Glassy Polymers for Higher Hydrocarbon Removal from Natural Gas

Saudi Arabia owns one of the largest proven reserves of natural gas in the world. Much of this resource is utilized for domestic energy production; however, other opportunities exist for natural gas monetization, such as fuel gas conditioning and recovery of C₃⁺ hydrocarbons for feedstock and petrochemical applications.  As such, Saudi Aramco has strong interest in developing gas separation membranes for improving the recovery of C₃⁺ hydrocarbons from methane in existing liquid recovery units (LRU). In this case, reverse selective membranes are needed in order to retain methane on the high pressure so that recompression into transmission pipelines can be avoided.  Recently, a series of novel glassy polynorbornenes was developed that demonstrates improvement in mixed gas C₃⁺/C₁ selectivity relative to commercial PDMS under field relevant conditions. Through a systematic study in the transport properties of these materials under industrially-relevant feed streams, the effect of polymer structure as well as crosslinking on membrane performance has been elucidated.  This talk will discuss mixed gas transport results of these polynorbornenes compared to commercial PDMS, demonstrating the promise of these glassy membranes for reverse selective membrane applications.