Praxair Technology, Inc.

Michael J Dray

Henry Edward Howard

Minish Mahendra Shah

Joseph Michael Schwartz

Steven R Falta

James Patrick Meagher

Hai Du

Khushnuma Koita

The present invention relates to an adsorption process for xenon recovery from a cryogenic liquid or gas stream wherein a bed of adsorbent is contacted with a xenon-containing liquid or gas stream selectively adsorbing the xenon from said stream. The adsorption bed is operated to at least near full breakthrough with xenon to enable a deep rejection of other stream components, prior to regeneration using the temperature swing method. After the stripping step, the xenon adsorbent bed is drained to clear out the liquid residue left in the nonselective void space and the xenon molecules in those void spaces is recycled upstream to the ASU distillation column for increasing xenon recovery. The xenon adsorbent bed is optionally purged with oxygen, followed by purging with gaseous argon at cryogenic temperature (&#x2264;160 K) to displace the oxygen co-adsorbed on the AgX adsorbent due to higher selectivity of argon over oxygen on the AgX adsorbent. By the end of this step, the xenon adsorbent bed is filled with argon and xenon. Then the entire adsorbent bed is heated indirectly without utilizing any of the purge gas for direct heating. Operating the adsorption bed to near full breakthrough with xenon and displacing the adsorbed oxygen and other residues with argon, prior to regeneration, along with indirect heating of the bed, enables production of a high purity product &#x2265;40 vol % xenon from the adsorption bed and further enables safely heating without any purge gas and ease for downstream product collection, even in cases where hydrocarbons are co-present in the feed stream.

Adsorptive xenon recovery process from a gas or liquid stream at cryogenic temperature

The present invention relates a process and apparatus that recovers a helium rich stream from a mixed gas having low concentrations of helium therein. More specifically, the invention relates to an integrated process and apparatus for treating a mixed feed gas from an operating process that produces a liquid product from natural gas containing helium, such as processes that produce ammonia, methanol, or liquid hydrocarbons.

Integrated process and apparatus for recovery of helium rich streams

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Amherst, NY, United States of America

Michael J Dray