• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.67-72
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• 2013

The LNG liquefaction plant which have a higher value-added business in the LNG value chain takes about 35% of total cost. Liquefaction process is core technology of liquefaction plant. Almost all of cost which was consumed from the liquefaction plant, using for operation energy of liquefaction process. The cost can be reduced by increasing efficiency of liquefaction cycle. C3MR(propane pre-cooled, mixed refrigerant cycle) which liquefies NG using propane and MR cycle has the high efficiency, so C3MR is mostly used liquefaction process in LNG industry. In this study, process simulation and analysis were performed for C3MR process. C3MR process variables were found through this simulation and analysis, and then the process optimization was performed. It is considered that the results of process analysis, process variables and process optimization study can be utilized to develope new liquefaction process.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2020

The present study discussed the thermodynamic analysis of the hydrogen liquefaction process to build a hydrogen liquefaction pilot plant with a small capacity (0.5 ton/day). A 2-stage Brayton cycle utilizing LNG/LN2 cold energy was suggested to be built in Korea for the hydrogen liquefaction pilot plant with a small capacity. Thermodynamic analysis on the effect of various variables on the efficiency of hydrogen liquefaction process was performed. As a result, the CASE in which the ortho-para conversion catalyst was infiltrated inside the heat exchanger showed the best process efficiency. Finally, thermodynamic analysis was performed on the effect of turbo expander compression ratio on the hydrogen liquefaction process and it was confirmed that an optimal turbo expander compression ratio exists.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.66-74
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• 2002

The effects of phenol during ethylene carbonate (EC) liquefaction of pine bark in the presence of methanesulfonic acid (MSA) as a catalyst were investigated. Liquefaction of pine bark using EC in the presence of acid catalyst was very difficult in comparison to wood. Mixing ethylene glycol (EG) with EC improved the liquefaction process, but the maximum liquefaction yield did not exceed 78%. Mixing 20~30% phenol with EC was very effective for the liquefaction and the residue was remarkably decreased. More than 95% of liquefaction was achieved when about 30% phenol was mixed with EC. The reaction conditions, such as catalyst concentration, liquefaction temperature and time, type of catalyst and liquefying agent, had a great influence on the liquefaction process. The results of the average molecular weights and the amount of combined phenols for the liquefied products indicated that sulfuric acid (SA) causes high condensation reactions compared to MSA.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 2020

As hydrogen utilization becomes more active recently, a large amount of hydrogen should be supplied safely. Among the three supply methods, liquefied hydrogen, which is an optimal method of storage and transportation convenience and high safety, has a low temperature of -253℃, which is complicated by the liquefaction process and consumes a lot of electricity, resulting in high operating costs. In order to reduce the electrical energy required for liquefaction and to raise the efficiency, hydrogen is cooled by using a mixed refrigerant in a precooling step. The electricity required for the precooling process of the mixed refrigerant can be reduced by using the cold energy of LNG. Actually, LNG cold energy is used in refrigeration warehouse and air liquefaction separation process, and a lot of power reduction is achieved. The purpose of this study is to replace the electric power by using LNG cold energy instead of the electric air-cooler to lower the temperature of the hydrogen and refrigerant that are increased due to the compression in the hydrogen liquefaction process. The required energy was obtained by simulating mixed refrigerant (MR) hydrogen liquefaction system with LNG cold heat and electric system. In addition, the power replacement rate of the electric process were obtained with the pressure, the temperature of LNG, the rate of latent heat utilization, and the hydrogen liquefaction capacity, Therefore, optimization of the hydrogen liquefaction system using LNG cold energy was carried out.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.609-616
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• 2018

The cargo handling system, which is composed of a fuel gas supply unit and cargo tank pressure control unit, is the second largest power consumer in a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) carrier. Because of recent enhancements in ship efficiency, the surplus boil-off gas that remains after supplying fuel gas for ship propulsion must be reliquefied or burned to regulate the cargo tank pressure. A full or partial liquefaction process can be applied to return the surplus gas to the cargo tank. The purpose of this study is to review the current partial liquefaction process for LNG carriers and develop new processes for reducing power consumption using exergy analysis. The developed partial liquefaction process was also compared with the full liquefaction process applicable to a LNG carrier with a varying boil-off gas composition and varying liquefaction amounts. An exergy analysis showed that the Joule-Thomson valve is the key component needed for improvements to the system, and that the proposed system showed an 8% enhancement relative to the current prevailing system. A comparison of the study results with a partial/full liquefaction process showed that power consumption is strongly affected by the returned liquefied amount.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.95-105
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• 2018

An FLNG (floating liquefied natural gas) or LNG FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading) unit is a notable offshore unit with the increasing demand for LNG. The liquefaction process on an FLNG unit is the most important process because it determines the economic feasibility, but would be a hazard source because of the large quantity of hydrocarbons. While a high efficiency process such as C3MR has been preferred for onshore liquefaction processes, a relatively simple process such as the SMR (single mixed refrigerant) or DMR (dual mixed refrigerant) liquefaction process has been selected for offshore units because they require a more compact size, lighter weight, and higher safety due to their space limitation for facilities and long distance from shore. It is known that an SMR has the advantages of a simple configuration, small footprint, and lower risk. However, with an increased production rate, the inherent safety of SMR needs to be evaluated because of its small train capacity. In this study, the potential explosion risks of the SMR and DMR liquefaction processes were evaluated at the conceptual design stage. The results showed that an SMR has a lower overpressure than a DMR at the same frequency, only with a small production capacity of 0.9 MTPA. With increased capacity, the overpressure of the SMR was higher than that of the DMR. The increased number of trains increased the frequency in spite of the small amount of equipment per train. This showed that the inherent risk of an SMR is not always lower than that of a DMR, and an additional risk management strategy is recommended when an SMR is selected as the concept for an FLNG liquefaction process compared to the DMR liquefaction process.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.181-185
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• 2008

The new concept for liquefaction of natural gas has been designed and simulated in this paper. Conventional liquefaction cycles are usually composed with Joule-Thomson valves at lower temperature refrigerant cycle. The new concept of natural gas liquefaction is discussed. The main difference with conventional liquefaction process is the presence of the turbine at low temperature of MR (mixed refrigerant) cycle. The turbine acts as expander but also as an energy generator. This generated energy is provided to the compressor which consumes energy to pressurize refrigerants. The composition of the mixed refrigerant is investigated in this study. Components of the refrigerant are methane, propane and nitrogen. Composition for new process is traced with Aspen HYSYS software. LNG heat exchangers are analyzed for the new process. Heating and cooling curves in heat exchangers were also analyzed.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.372-379
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• 2018

High-pressure gas injection engines (HPGI) took center stage in LNG carrier propulsion systems after their advent. The HPGI engine system can be easily modified to include a re-liquefaction system by adding several devices, which can significantly increase the economic feasibility of the total system. This paper suggests the optimal operating conditions and capacity for a re-liquefaction system for an LNG carrier, which can minimize increases in the total annualized cost. The installation of a re-liquefaction system can save 0.23 million USD per year when the cost of LNG is 5 USD/Mscf. A sensitivity analysis with different LNG costs showed that the re-liquefaction system is profitable when the LNG cost is higher than 3.5 USD/Mscf.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.733-742
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• 2010

In this study, optimization was performed to improve the conventional liquefaction process of offshore plants, such as a LNG-FPSO(Liquefied Natural Gas-Floating, Production, Storage, and Offloading unit) by maximizing the energy efficiency of the process. The major equipments of the liquefaction process are compressors, expanders, and heat exchangers. These are connected by stream which has some thermodynamic properties, such as the temperature, pressure, enthalpy or specific volume, and entropy. For this, a process design problem for the liquefaction process of offshore plants was mathematically formulated as an optimization problem. The minimization of the total energy requirement of the liquefaction process was used as an objective function. Governing equations and other equations derived from thermodynamic laws acted as constraints. To solve this problem, the sequential quadratic programming(SQP) method was used. To evaluate the proposed method in this study, it was applied to the natural gas liquefaction process of the LNG-FPSO. The result showed that the proposed method could present the improved liquefaction process minimizing the total energy requirement as compared to conventional process.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.415-420
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• 2018

The development of sail gas has increased the production of ethane as well as natural gas. The decline in the market price for ethane has led to a change in the petroleum-based ethylene production process into an ethane-based ethylene production process and an increase in the ethane/ethylene trade volume. Large-scale ethane/ethylene carrier have been needed due to an increase in long-distance trade from the US, and cargo type change have leaded to consider a liquefaction process to re-liquefy Boil-Off gas generated during the voyage. In this paper, the liquefaction system of Liquefied Ethane Gas carrier was evaluated with Low-GWP (Low-Global Warming Potential) refrigerant and process parameters, Boil-Off Gas pressure and expansion valve outlet pressure, were optimized. Low-GWP refrigerants were propane (R290), propylene(R1270), carbon dioxide(R744) was considered at two type of liquefaction process such as Linde and cascade cycle. The results show that the optimal pressure point depends on the individual refrigerant and the highest liquefaction efficiency of carbon dioxide (R744) - propane (R290) refrigerant.