Development and performance test of a small trailer-mounted moveable natural gas liquefier

A portable small liquefier for natural gas or coal-bed methane liquefaction has been designed and tested. The liquefier is very compact, and the compressor is directly mounted on a trailer. The liquefier is based on a mixed-refrigerant liquefaction cycle with R22 precooling. Most of the components in the liquefier are easily available off-the-shelf refrigeration products. An oil-lubricated single-stage R22 screw compressor is used for the mixed-refrigerant compression. An aluminum plate-fin heat exchanger with four flow passages was designed as the core of the cold box. The liquefier was tested for about 4 months by circulating pure methane as the natural gas resource. A maximum liquefaction capacity of 15,000 Nm3 was achieved with a minimum specific power consumption of about 0.54 kW h/Nm3. This liquefier can be used in various applications such as small natural gas or coalbed methane exploitations, distributed peak-shaving, and boil-off gas reliquefaction. These can also be used as a flexible distributed liquefaction center with a set of small liquefiers.

► A compact moveable small natural gas liquefier has been developed.
► All components used are easily available from the market as off-the-shelf products.
► A maximum liquefaction capacity of 15,000 Nm3/d was achieved using methane resources.
► The measured minimum specific power is 0.54 kW h/Nm3.
► Building a distributed liquefaction center with a group of liquefiers was proposed.