Research on light hydrocarbon recovery process of liquefied natural gas based on objective function optimization

With the optimization of China ‘s energy structure, the consumption and import volume of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a clean energy have continued to increase. However, the light hydrocarbons containing ethane and above not only affect calorific value and metering, but also restrict the comprehensive utilization efficiency of resources. Based on the review of traditional processes such as US patent US0188996A1, US7069743B2 and Chinese patent CN1318543C, a new process for LNG light hydrocarbon recovery based on Direct Heat Exchange (DHX) is proposed. This process introduces a heavy contact tower to achieve secondary fine separation of methane and light hydrocarbons, eliminates the flash tower in the traditional process, and optimizes the heat exchange network and energy consumption distribution through designs such as stepwise utilization of rich liquid thermal energy and energy recuperation within the deethanizer. Process simulations were conducted based on the PR (Peng Robinson) state equation and HYSYS software. Comparative analyses covered energy consumption, product quality, exergy, heat exchange network, etc. The objective function optimization was achieved by combining the response surface experimental design and the NSGA-Ⅱ (Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithms-Ⅱ) algorithm. The results show that if only methane is extracted from LNG rich liquid, the energy consumption of the process proposed in this paper is reduced by 35.9%, 46.4% and 44.9% respectively compared with the US patent US0188996A1, the US patent US7069743B2 and the Chinese patent CN1318543C. The high calorific value of the process in this paper can be reduced to 34.16 MJ/m³, meeting the quality requirements of Class Ⅰ natural gas. The total exergy loss is 7171 kW, and the exergy efficiency of the system is 57.4%. Heat exchange network analysis shows that its minimum heat exchange temperature difference and logarithmic mean temperature difference are smaller, and the heat integration degree is higher. After optimization by the NSGA-Ⅱ algorithm, with little change in ethane yield, the total energy consumption can be reduced from 16,863 kW to 16,701 kW. With little change in total energy consumption, the ethane yield can increase from 93.52% to 97.85%. The process proposed in this paper has significant advantages in reducing energy consumption, improving product quality and resource recovery rate, and can provide important theoretical support for the engineering design and on-site operation of LNG light hydrocarbon recovery.