Method of continuously conditioning gas, preferably natural gas

US8899045B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• EWE Gasspeicher GmbH · DE

Inventor

• Andreas Lenk · Rabenau, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: May 12, 2009
• Grant date: Dec 2, 2014
• Expiry date: Jan 17, 2032

Classification

• Technology area (CPC F): Mechanical Engineering; Lighting; Heating
• CPC primary: F23K2400/10
• WIPO field: Thermal processes and apparatus
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

Before being fed into a pipe, particularly a network of pipes for the supply of consumers, gas, preferably natural gas, is continuously conditioned. The pressurized gas is removed from a reservoir, expanded, and heated to a predefined temperature before or after the expansion thereof in that a branched-off partial flow of the fed-out natural gas is mixed with oxygen and the resulting burnable gas is catalytically burned. The fed-out gas is heated with the thermal energy that is produced. For this purpose, a partial exhaust gas flow is branched off from a hot exhaust gas flow released during the catalytic combustion and conducted into a first container together with the cold burnable gas. The burnable gas is mixed with the supplied exhaust gas flow in the first container and is heated, and the mixture composed of the exhaust gas and burnable gas preheated in this way is conducted away from the first container into a second container, where it is subjected to the catalytic combustion, the heat of which is used to heat the fed-out gas to be conditioned to the respectively desired temperature.