Abstract
Membrane gas separation has the potential to recover and purify helium, either directly from natural gas or as part of the off gas produced from the nitrogen rejection unit in conventional natural gas processing. Process designs for achieving high helium recovery and purity have previously been published by the authors, based on permeability and selectivity performances already present in current polymeric membranes. Here, the application of polymeric gas separation membranes for helium recovery is extended further, and the economic viability of process designs has been investigated and evaluated against the commercial helium price. For direct recovery and purification of helium from natural gas, membrane gas separation is economically competitive when the natural gas field has a helium concentration of ≥0.3 mol %. The final compression of the purified helium dominates the economics, accounting for 45% of the capital cost (CAPEX) of the process as well as 80% of the operating costs, because the membrane a...
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