Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

John Louis Griffiths

Adam Adrian Brostow

Declan Patrick O'Connor

Patrick Alan Houghton

Paul Higginbotham

Swaminathan Sunder

Jean-Philippe Trembley

John Lloyd Dillon, Iv

Stephen John Cook

Swaninathan Sunder

In a process for the recovery of krypton and xenon, an oxygen-enriched stream containing krypton and/or xenon and hydrocarbons is removed from an air separation unit. A substantial portion of the hydrocarbons, especially methane, ethane, and acetylene, is removed from the oxygen-enriched stream prior to the distillation process. The hydrocarbon removal process includes, but is not restricted to, the hydrocarbons reacting with a portion of the oxygen present in the feed gas. The krypton and xenon are eventually recovered from the oxygen stream through a distillation process. The distillation process is performed in such a manner that at least a stream further enriched in both krypton and xenon is produced.

Krypton and xenon recovery system

A method for recovering krypton and xenon from air comprises (a) separating an air feed stream into oxygen-enriched and nitrogen-enriched product streams; (b) reacting the oxygen-rich product stream with a hydrocarbon feed in a synthesis gas generation process to yield a synthesis gas stream comprising hydrogen, carbon oxides, krypton, and xenon, which synthesis gas stream contains essentially no oxygen; (c) introducing the synthesis gas stream into a synthesis gas conversion process and converting the synthesis gas stream into a liquid synthesis product stream and an unreacted synthesis gas stream; (d) recycling at least a portion of the unreacted synthesis gas stream to the synthesis gas generation process; (e) reducing the pressure of the liquid synthesis product stream to yield a two-phase reduced-pressure product stream, and separating the two-phase reduced-pressure product stream into a final liquid synthesis product stream and a gas stream enriched in krypton and xenon; and (f) separating the gas stream enriched in krypton and xenon into a purge gas stream and a gas product stream further enriched in krypton and xenon.

Recovery of krypton and xenon

A process for producing a nitrogen-enriched vapor product from a supply of a nitrogen-rich liquid uses a purifying device and a distillation column having a distillation zone. The process includes the steps of: feeding at least a portion of the supply of the nitrogen-rich liquid to the distillation zone at a first location; feeding a stream of a gas containing nitrogen and at least one contaminant to the purifying device, wherein the gas is cooled by a cryogenic liquid whereby at least a portion of the at least one contaminant condenses, solidifies, or dissolves; eventually feeding at least a portion of the cool gas from the purifying device to the distillation zone at a second location below the first location; withdrawing a stream of the nitrogen-enriched vapor product from the distillation zone; and withdrawing a stream of an oxygen-enriched liquid from the distillation zone.

Nitrogen generation process

Volatile compounds (&ldquo;VCs&rdquo;), especially volatile organic compounds (&ldquo;VOCs&rdquo;), are cryogenically removed from a process gas stream (p ) by cooling the gas stream in a condenser to condense the VC to form both liquid VC and VC ice and providing a treated process gas essentially freed of the VC but containing entrained VC ice particles, which are subsequently removed by passing the treated process gas through a filter downstream of the condenser to remove at least particles of a size greater than 50 &mgr;m. The condensation can be conducted in an indirect heat exchanger or by direct contact of the process gas with a liquid cryogen such as liquid nitrogen. It is preferred that the filter removes VC ice particles greater than 1 &mgr;m.

Process and apparatus for removal of volatile compounds from process gases

A process for the cryogenic distillation of air uses a distillation column system having a supplemental column and a distillation unit including a lower-pressure column and a higher-pressure column. A liquid stream enriched in oxygen is withdrawn from the lower-pressure column and is eventually vaporized through indirect latent heat transfer, thereby producing a reflux stream, a portion of which is eventually sent to the lower-pressure column, the higher-pressure column, and/or the supplemental column. At least a portion of the reflux for the supplemental column is eventually derived from the distillation unit. A nitrogen-enriched liquid removed from the distillation unit is increased in pressure and is fed to the supplemental column or back to the distillation unit. An oxygen-enriched fluid from the bottom of the supplemental column is fed to the distillation unit. At least some of the nitrogen product from the supplemental column is returned to the distillation unit.

Air separation process

A method for the separation of a feed gas mixture comprising oxygen and nitrogen in which an oxidant gas and fuel are combusted in a combustion engine to generate shaft work and a hot exhaust gas, the feed gas mixture comprising oxygen and nitrogen is compressed, and the resulting compressed feed gas mixture is separated into two or more product gas streams with differing compositions. The shaft work of the combustion engine is utilized to provide at least a portion of the work required for compressing the feed gas mixture, one of the product gas streams by is heated by indirect heat exchange with the hot exhaust gas from the combustion engine, and the resulting heated product gas is work expanded to generate shaft work and yield an expanded product gas stream. The combustion engine may be a gas turbine combustion engine.

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Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

John Louis Griffiths