Boc, Inc.

David A Webber

Kenneth C Smith

John W Armond

Devasihamani J Sebastian

A fluid supply system includes a pressure-swing adsorption plant e.g. for supplying oxygen-rich gas to an activated sludge reactor in a sewage works. The product gas from the plant is supplied to the utilization apparatus by a compressor at a rate dependent on the demand for the gas, while waste gas is desorbed from the plant by a vacuum pump. When using the plant to separate oxygen from an air feedstock the major proportion of the power consumed by the plant is represented by the vacuum pump, which has to impell substantially greater volumes of gas than the product compressor. To economize on the power consumed by the plant, the rate of delivery of the vacuum pump is controlled by means sensitive to the demand of the utilization apparatus for product gas, so that a reduction in the demand from the product compressor leads to a reduction in the power consumption of the vacuum pump.

Fluid supply system including a pressure-swing adsorption plant

An air separation process using pressure swing adsorption techniques, for providing high purity oxygen. Two sections are employed one comprising beds of molecular sieve carbon and the other comprising beds of zeolite molecular sieve. Air is fed to a first of the sections which provides an oxygen-rich gas stream as feedstock for the next section where further enrichment takes place. The zeolite sieve section serves to effect a separation as between oxygen and nitrogen while the carbon sieve section serves to effect a separation as between oxygen and argon and the processes performed at each section are integrated in such a manner as to minimize power consumption and make use of gas recycled from the second section to the first in addition to the flow of gas from the first section to the second.

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Bishops Stortford, United Kingdom

David A Webber