COGENERATION OF ELECTRICITY AND REFRIGERATION BY WORK EXPANDING PIPELINE GAS

摘要

COGENERATION OF ELECTRICITY AND REFRIGERATION BY WORK-EXPANDING PIPELINE GAS Cogeneration of electricity and saleable refrigeration is achieved by passing pipeline gas with added methanol through a turbo expander coupled to an electrical generator so that moisture in the gas forms an aqueous methanol condensate separable from the cold, expanded gas. The condensate is distilled to separate discard water from recycle methanol. After recovering refrigeration therefrom, the expanded gas is warmed to a temperature above 32.degree.F by adding all the required heat as reboiler heat for the distillation and passing the expanded gas in heat exchange with distilled methanol vapor which is liquefied and used partly as reflux and partly as recycle methanol.