Chapter 6: Gas/Vapor Permeation Applications in the Hydrocarbon-processing Industry

This chapter present an overview of the applications of gas/vapor permeation in the three main fields of the hydrocarbon-processing industry, viz:

• natural or biogas treatment

• petroleum refining (which aims at producing fuels)

• production of petrochemicals (which aims at producing first intermediates, i.e. olefins and aromatics, for raw chemicals or polymers production).

The review will:

• present the technical challenges and markets the permeation membranes are meant to address

• give a detailed presentation of existing commercial membrane technologies (providers, membrane materials, available technical and economic performances) illustrated, when possible, with case studies

• provide the future trends for research in each addressed application.