LNG-FPSO (Liquefied Natural Gas - Floating Production Storage and Offloading) is a promising energy-efficient method compared to onshore NG (Natural Gas) treatment facility when the gas well is located in a distant offshore ocean. The heat exchanger for LNG-FPSO should be more compact than the ones in onshore liquefaction plant due to its limited platform area. PCHE (Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger) is a newly developed heat exchanger with favorable characteristic of compactness. In this paper, we fabricated PCHE, and applied to MR-JT (Mixed Refrigerant Joule Thomson) cycle to simulate SMR (Single Mixed Refrigerant) process. Tube heat exchangers are also fabricated to compare performance of cooling system. The experimental results of the MR-JT cooling system are discussed in this paper.
LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) implies the liquid state of natural gas, which is liquefied at temperature around −161°C (112 K) (Waldmann, 2008). The composition of NG (Natural Gas) is mostly methane. The liquid density at the normal boiling point of methane is approximately 610 times greater than that of the gas at ambient temperature and pressure. Consequently, a given volume of liquid contains over 600 times the heating value as the same volume of ambient gas. This density increase at ambient pressure makes it attractive to liquefy, transport, and store natural gas in large quantities (Kidnay and Parrish, 2006). South Korea's LNG demand is currently increasing like the world's LNG demand. LNG was the source of 25% of world energy consumption at 2005, but this demand will be increased up to 50% in next ten years (Allison Ball, 2003). The offshore gas plant development is revaluated as one of the promising energy industries, because 20% of natural gas wells are under the sea. FPSO (Floating Production Storage & Offloading) refines, liquefies and stores natural gas from the sea.
