Chemistry of inorganic compounds – Carbon or compound thereof – Oxygen containing
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-09
2002-11-05
Hendrickson, Stuart L. (Department: 1754)
Chemistry of inorganic compounds
Carbon or compound thereof
Oxygen containing
C062S928000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06475460
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
In general, the invention relates to desalination or other purification of water using hydrates to extract fresh water from saline or polluted water. In particular, the invention relates to desalination or purification of saline or polluted water using, e.g., industrial waste gas as a source of carbon dioxide; capturing the carbon dioxide from the source gas by forming carbon dioxide hydrate; and producing liquid carbon dioxide directly as a desalination byproduct.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In general, desalination and purification of saline or polluted water using buoyant gas hydrates is known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,873,262 and accepted South African Patent Application No. 98/5681, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference. According to this approach to water desalination or purification, a gas or mixture of gases which spontaneously forms buoyant gas hydrate when mixed with water at sufficiently high depth-induced pressures and/or sufficiently low temperatures is mixed with water to be treated at the relatively deep base of a treatment column. According to prior technology, the treatment column is located at sea. Because the hydrate is positively buoyant, it rises though the column into warmer water and lower pressures. As the hydrate rises, it becomes unstable and disassociates into pure water and the positively buoyant hydrate-forming gas or gas mixture. The purified water is then extracted and the gas is processed and reused for subsequent cycles of hydrate formation. (Where the wet gas may be used for some other purpose, such as power generation nearby, it may prove unnecessary to process the gas and instead to use the gas in a pass-through mode; in this way, only the small amount of gas not recovered is an operating cost.) Suitable gases include, among others, methane, ethane, propane, butane, and mixtures thereof.
The previously known methods of desalination or purification using buoyant gas hydrates rely on the naturally high pressures and naturally low temperatures that are found at open ocean depths below 450 to 500 meters when using pure methane, or somewhat shallower when using mixed gases to enlarge the hydrate stability “envelope,” and the desalination installations are essentially immobile once constructed, being fixed to pipelines carrying fresh water to land. In certain marine locations such as the Mediterranean Sea, however, the water is not cold enough for the requisite pressure to be found at a shallow enough depth; this would necessitate using a much longer column, which is impractical. Moreover, many places where fresh water is at a premium are located adjacent to wide, shallow water continental shelves where a marine desalination apparatus would have to be located a great distance offshore. Furthermore, a fixed installation is somewhat less versatile than a mobile installation would be. Additionally, the known methodologies have all required the hydrate, per se, to be buoyant in order to collect the hydrate and the fresh water released therefrom in an efficient manner.
In addition to using hydrates for desalination, it is also known to use hydrates to capture carbon dioxide from gas mixtures such as power plant emissions formed by burning fossil fuels by selectively forming carbon dioxide hydrates and then disposing of the carbon dioxide hydrates in an environment where the hydrate remains stable, e.g., at the bottom of the ocean. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,660,603, 5,562,891, and 5,397,553. Although such deep-sea disposal of carbon dioxide in the form of hydrate might be economically feasible where the hydrate is formed at or near the sea (e.g., on an oil rig or aboard a ship or at a seaside factory), it is far less economically feasible when the hydrate is produced inland. This is because of the expense of transporting the carbon dioxide-containing hydrate to the disposal location, the substantial majority of the weight and volume of which hydrate consists of water. (Carbon dioxide hydrate, like methane hydrate and other type I hydrates contains about 85% water on a molecular basis. In other words, about 85% of the molecules in these hydrates are water and about 15% of the molecules are gas molecules. The exact proportions vary slightly and are related to the degree of occupation of the ‘guest’ lattice sites in which the gas molecules reside.) Thus, the cost of such deep-sea disposal of carbon dioxide-bearing hydrate is increased substantially due to the cost of transporting (unnecessarily, as demonstrated by the present invention) the additional weight and volume of the water in the hydrate. Additionally, the previously known teachings of disposing of carbon dioxide via carbon dioxide hydrate completely ignores and therefore fails to take advantage of the tremendous capacity to obtain desalinated or otherwise purified water by means of forming and then melting (i.e., causing to dissociate) the carbon dioxide hydrates.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The various inventions disclosed herein overcome one or more of the limitations associated with the prior art and greatly expand the use and benefits of the hydrate desalination fractionation method by providing for land-based or mobile installation-based desalination of seawater (or other purification of polluted water) that is supplied to the installation and using either positively or negatively buoyant hydrate. The methods of the invention can be employed where input water is too warm or where suitably deep ocean depths are not available within reasonable distances for ocean-based desalination to be performed using gas hydrate, and may be carried out using a gas or gas mixture or even a liquid which produces either positively or negatively buoyant hydrate. Additionally, the invention can be practiced using carbon dioxide obtained from, e.g., industrial exhaust gases, thereby simultaneously providing purified water and capturing the carbon dioxide in the most efficient form for disposal (or other use, if so desired).
The inventive methods entail cooling the seawater to sufficiently low temperatures for hydrate to form at the bottom of a desalination fractionation column at pressure-depths and temperatures appropriate for the particular hydrate-forming material being used. A preferred embodiment capitalizes on the property of the hydrate that the amount of heat given off during formation of the hydrate at depth is essentially equal to the amount of heat absorbed by the hydrate as it disassociates (melts) back into pure water and a hydrate-forming material. In particular, as liquid or gas forms hydrate, and as the hydrate crystals rise through the water column (either due to inherent buoyancy of the hydrate or “assisted” by gas trapped within a hydrate mesh shell) and continue to grow, heat released during formation of the hydrate will heat the surrounding seawater in the column. As the hydrate rises in the water column and pressure on it decreases, the hydrate dissociates endothermically—the hydrate formation is driven primarily by the increased pressure at depth—and absorbs heat from the surrounding water column. Ordinarily, the heat energy absorbed during dissociation of the hydrate would be essentially the same heat energy released during exothermic formation of the hydrate such that there would be essentially no net change in the amount of heat energy in the system.
According to the invention, however, heat energy that is liberated during formation of the hydrate is removed from the system by removing residual saline water from the water column, which residual saline water has been heated by the heat energy released during exothermic formation of the hydrate. Because formation of the hydrate is primarily pressure driven (as opposed to temperature driven), the hydrate becomes unstable under reduced pressures as it rises through the water column, and it dissociates endothermically. Because some heat energy released during exothermic crystallization has been removed from the system, the hydrate will absorb heat from other sources as it melt
Hendrickson Stuart L.
Marine Desalination Systems LLC
Pillsbury & Winthrop LLP
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