[Gasification] Methane

[Daniel Chisholm]

On Thu, 2007-31-05 at 10:01 +0100, shelton victor wrote:
> Dear All
>    
>    Is it possible to compress methane (whats the ratio), economically
> and whats the maximum distance methane can be transported on pipes
> without degrading its values.

Natural gas is (mostly) methane.  It is economically compressed to
1000psi-ish pressures and transported across continents via pipelines.
What is "economic"?  Since we know that natural gas used to be sold for
a few dollars per thousand cubic feet, we can deduce that transporting a
gas via pipeline across continental distances is doable for a few
dollars per thousand cubic feet.

But I suspect though that that's not what you were getting at; if you
are interested in doing something economically useful with the methane
that is part of producer gas, the first problem is separating it from
the ~50% nitrogen.  The second problem is to separate it from the H2 and
CO.

In deciding what is economical to compress and transport, keep in mind
that CH4 has more energy per unit volume than does CO+H2, which in turn
has more than CO+H2+50%N2.  And gas compression costs are roughly
proportional to the volumes involved (more volume of gas to compress
equals more work).


-- 
- Daniel
Fredericton, NB  Canada