Praxair Technology, Inc.

Union Carbide Corporation

Union Carbide Industrial Gases Technology Corporation

Herbert Raymond Schaub

James Smolarek

Frederick Wells Leavitt

John Harry Fassbaugh

Michael John Sinicropi

Timothy Mark Aaron

Michael Kenneth Rogan

Kimberly A LaSala

Bayram Arman

Thomas John Bergman, Jr

Todd Alan Skare

Thomas Gilbert Halvorson

Mohamed Safdar Baksh

Vincent J Kibler

Lee J Toussaint

Amanda K Girard

Joseph William Hass, Jr

Michael Anthony Marino

A method for providing refrigeration to a cryogenic rectification plant which enables the facile provision of varying amounts of refrigeration to the plant wherein a working fluid is pressurized in a recycle compressor, a first portion is at least partially condensed in a heat exchanger and passed into the plant, a second portion is cooled and then turboexpanded to generate refrigeration, the refrigeration bearing second portion passes refrigeration in the heat exchanger to the first portion to effect the condensation, and the resulting second portion is not passed into the cryogenic rectification plant but rather is returned to the recycle compressor.

Method for providing refrigeration to a cryogenic rectification plant

A VPSA apparatus includes a first adsorbent bed and a second adsorbent bed, a feed blower for providing a flow of a gas mixture at about atmospheric pressure to the beds, and a vacuum blower for removing a flow of gas therefrom and venting the gas to a space at atmospheric pressure. The VPSA process causes the first adsorbent bed to be poised for evacuation by the vacuum blower and concurrently, the second adsorbent bed is under vacuum conditions and is poised for pressurization by the feed blower. A single motor is coupled by a common shaft to both the feed blower and the vacuum blower and operates both. A conduit/valve arrangement is operative during at least a portion of a process time when the adsorbent beds are in pressurizing/evacuation states, respectively, to couple the feed blower to the second adsorbent bed when at vacuum and for concurrently coupling the vacuum blower to the first adsorbent bed which is to be evacuated. The feed blower is thereby caused to operate in a gas expansion mode and imparts expansion energy, via the common shaft, to the vacuum blower. During idling conditions, a valve-conduit system is controlled to enable significant reductions in pressure rise across the feed and vacuum blowers.

System for energy recovery in a vacuum pressure swing adsorption apparatus

A system for liquefying industrial gas wherein industrial gas is compressed to two levels using a first and a second compression system and then is processed in a heat exchanger having horizontally oriented sensible heat exchange passages and vertically oriented condensing heat exchange passages.

Cryogenic industrial gas liquefaction system

The invention comprises a pressure swing adsorption process for the separation of a less adsorbable component from a mixture comprising the less adsorbable component and a more adsorbable component, the process comprising a cyclic adsorption/desorption process wherein the desorption step is at a selected pressure and occurs for a selected time such that a pressure reducing apparatus utilized to evacuate the gas does not require extraneous cooling.

Rotary blowers for pressure swing adsorption process and system

A vacuum pressure swing adsorbent (VPSA) system and method for separating a component from a fluid mixture and including a fluid source for introducing the mixture into the system and a supply apparatus for collecting the separated component. A pair of adsorbent bed vessels is interposed between the fluid source and the supply apparatus to adsorb and desorb a predetermined component under respective adsorption and desorption pressures characterized by a low pressure ratio and relatively high desorption pressure values. Implementation of a single-stage vacuum device made possible by the use of the high desorption pressure, results in further reduction in both equipment and operating costs.

Vacuum pressure swing adsorption system and method

A pressure swing adsorption air prepurifier is used to remove water, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons from a feed gas stream, such as a feed air stream, passing to a cryogenic air separation plant. By the incorporation of a regenerative heat exchange as an integral part of the air prepurifier, the cooling effects of the desorption of water are stored and transferred so as to cool the incoming feed air stream passing to the adsorbent material within the air prepurifier. The productive capacity of the adsorbent material is enhanced thereby.

Pressure swing adsorption air prepurifier

System for energy recovery in a vacuum pressure swing adsorption

Vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) processing is carried out employing a processing sequence of ten steps that serves to enhance the productive capacity thereof for air separation and other desirable applications.

Vacuum pressure swing adsorption process

A pressure swing adsorption process for the recovery of oxygen from air improves upon a prior art process by depressurizing the adsorbent bed within an adsorbent vessel to an intermediate pressure by releasing void space gas from the product end of the vessel to a low purity oxygen tank while concurrently evacuating the adsorbent vessel from the feed end. This action enables an increased speed of depressurization and a reduction of the cycle time. Further, the adsorbent bed is repressurized to an intermediate pressure from the product outlet end with gas from the low purity oxygen tank, while concurrently pressurizing the adsorbent vessel from the input feed end. This action increases the load time fraction for a feed/vacuum blower. Further, oxygen is introduced to the product end of the adsorbent bed vessel from a high purity oxygen tank (which provides product to downstream applications) while concurrently, air is introduced to the feed end of the adsorbent bed within the vessel. This enables an increased speed of increase in pressure in the bed from the intermediate desorption pressure. Next, a reduction in pressure ratio during the cycle elevates the pressure within the desorption vessel to approximately 7 psia, thereby reducing the evacuation requirements placed on the feed/vacuum blower. The above actions enable achievement of efficiency improvements on the order of 10%.

Single bed pressure swing adsorption process for recovery of oxygen from

Large vacuum pressure swing adsorption-oxygen plants are employed with four adsorption vessels, two air compressors, two vacuum pumps and an oxygen surge tank, operated on a (two) two-bed processing system basis. One two-bed system is offset from the other by one half of one half processing cycle. Reduced power and capital cost savings are achieved.

Large capacity vacuum pressure swing adsorption process and system

Process swing adsorption processes for gas separation are carried out using overlapping pressure swing adsorption, feed gas repressurization and desorption steps. The adsorptive capacity of the system employed is increased, unit power consumption is decreased, and the overall efficiency of the operation is enhanced.

Simultaneous step pressure swing adsorption process

A pressure swing adsorption process employs a simultaneous equalization and evacuation step followed by simultaneous feed and product gas repressurization steps, resulting in faster processing, and a reduction in power requirements, in the recovery of oxygen and argon from feed air.

Pressure swing adsorption process

Waste heat generated within a pressure swing adsorption system is effectively captured and utilized to preheat the feed gas passing to a feed gas blower for compression to the desired adsorption pressure level. The energy efficiency of the system, and overall system performance, are thereby enhanced.

Pressure swing adsorption heat recovery

Vacuum and other pressure swing adsorption vessels are monitored, and corrective adjustments are made in the pressure equalization and/or repressurization steps in response to imbalances in the temperature profiles of the vessels in order to tune the system. The PSA process is also desirably purge tuned to avoid over purging or under purging of each vessel.

Tuning of vacuum pressure swing adsorption systems

A single bed, air separation PSA system utilizes an external product surge tank to supply product oxygen and purge gas to the adsorbent bed. An equalization tank supplies void space gas to the bed for repressurization purposes.

Growing community of inventors

East Amherst, NY, United States of America

Herbert Raymond Schaub