The Boc Group, Inc.

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

Paul Higginbotham

Vincent White

John Douglas Oakey

Declan Patrick O'Connor

John Eugene Palamara

Kelvin Graham Hayes

Joseph Paul Naumovitz

Joseph Gerard Wehrman

Rakesh Agrawal

Donn Michael Herron

Jason Michael Ploeger

Galip Hakan Guvelioglu

John H Petrik

Alan Berger

Timothy Christopher Golden

Kevin Boyle Fogash

Gowri Krishnamurthy

Adam Adrian Brostow

Mohammad Ali Kalbassi

Zbigniew Tadeusz Fidkowski

Dingjun Wu

Jeffrey Kloosterman

Andrew David Wright

Shubhra Jyoti Bhadra

Liu Yang

Jin Cao

John Louis Griffiths

Christopher Francis Harris

Stephen Roger Clare

Joseph Straub

David Mark Stuart

Maulik R Shelat

Yang Liu

Timothy C Golden

Cory E Sanderson

Alan D Berger

Leighton B Wilson

Todd M Moyle

Kamlesh Ghodasara

Christopher Suggitt

Mozhgan Alimohammadi Zanjani

Niranjan Sundaram

Michelle Roaf

Rebecca J Andrew

Jeffrey William Kloosterman

Vince White

A method and system for purifying a carbon dioxide feed stream in which the carbon dioxide feed stream is cooled and partially condensed to remove water upstream of an adsorber to produce a dry carbon dioxide stream. The dry carbon dioxide stream is further cooled and partially condensed in a carbon dioxide purification unit to form a carbon dioxide product stream. Excess refrigeration duty from the carbon dioxide purification unit is used to cool the carbon dioxide feed stream.

Dehydration of carbon dioxide

Hydrogen is liquefied through a process utilizing refrigeration from hydrogen at one, two, or three different pressures as well as a nitrogen refrigeration cycle. One or more stages of catalyst are used to convert ortho-hydrogen to para-hydrogen as the hydrogen is cooled and liquefied. Subcooled liquid hydrogen feeds the final stage of ortho-hydrogen to para-hydrogen conversion to reduce or eliminate vaporization of the hydrogen during the exothermic ortho-hydrogen to para-hydrogen conversion.

Hydrogen liquefier

A hydrogen feed stream comprising one or more impurities selected from the group consisting of nitrogen, argon, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water, is contacted with liquid hydrogen in a cryogenic wash column (CWC) process that produces pure hydrogen with high overall recovery. The waste liquid stream leaving the CWC may be used to improve the performance of upstream hydrogen processing steps.

Method for producing high purity hydrogen

A process for producing compressed hydrogen gas, said process comprising electrolysing water to produce hydrogen gas and compressing said hydrogen gas in a multistage compression system to produce compressed hydrogen gas. The multistage compression system comprises at least one centrifugal compression stage, and the hydrogen gas is fed to the centrifugal compression stage at a pre-determined feed temperature and pressure and having a pre-determined relative humidity. The process further comprises adding water and heat to the hydrogen gas upstream of the centrifugal compression stage, as required, to humidify the hydrogen gas to the pre-determined relative humidity.

Process and apparatus for compressing hydrogen gas in a centrifugal compressor

A process for producing compressed hydrogen gas including: electrolysing water to produce hydrogen gas, and compressing the hydrogen gas in a multistage compression system including: a centrifugal compression stage and a recycle system for recycling a portion of the hydrogen gas from a product end to a feed end of the centrifugal compression stage; wherein hydrogen gas feed is fed to the feed end at a pre-determined feed temperature and pressure and mole fraction of water; wherein a portion of the hydrogen gas is removed from the product end, reduced in pressure in the recycle system to the pre-determined feed pressure and is then recycled to form at least part of the hydrogen gas feed to the centrifugal compression stage; and further including cooling hydrogen gas comprising the reduced pressure hydrogen gas such that the water mole fraction in the hydrogen gas feed is at the pre-determined water mole fraction.

A method for supplying hydrogen gas for consumption in at least one downstream process, the method comprising: electrolysing water to provide hydrogen gas; compressing the hydrogen gas in a multistage compression system to provide compressed hydrogen gas; and feeding at least a portion of the compressed hydrogen gas to the downstream process(es); wherein the multistage compression system comprises at least one centrifugal compression stage; wherein the hydrogen gas is dosed with nitrogen gas upstream of the centrifugal compression stage(s); and wherein the nitrogen gas is present in the compressed hydrogen gas when fed to the downstream process(es).

Method and apparatus for dosing hydrogen in a centrifugal compression system

Light gases such as helium are extracted from a carbon dioxide-containing feed stream by distillation. Costly dehydration steps are avoided by pumping the liquid bottoms stream leaving the distillation column without vaporization so as to ensure that any water present in the feed remains in solution with the bulk stream leaving the process. This prevents any liquid phase water causing corrosion or solid ice or hydrates forming to plug the flow.

Lights removal from carbon dioxide

A helium-containing stream is recovered from a natural gas feed using a membrane followed by multiple distillation steps. Refrigeration is provided by expanding a bottoms liquid with a higher nitrogen content than the feed, achieving a lower temperature in the process. The helium-enriched vapor is then purified and the helium-containing waste stream is recycled to maximize recovery and reduce the number of compressors needed. The helium-depleted natural gas stream can be returned at pressure for utilization or transportation.

Helium extraction from natural gas

Impurities that are less volatile than carbon dioxide, e.g. hydrogen sulfide, are removed from crude carbon dioxide by processes involving distillation of said crude carbon dioxide in a distillation column system operating at super-atmospheric pressure(s) to produce carbon dioxide-enriched overhead vapor and bottoms liquid enriched with said impurities. Where such processes involve a single heat pump cycle, significant savings in power consumption are realized when the distillation column system is re-boiled by at least partially vaporizing liquid in or taken from an intermediate location in the column system.

Purification of carbon dioxide

The power required to recover Chydrocarbons from crude carbon dioxide comprising Chydrocarbons and hydrogen sulfide may be reduced by distilling the crude carbon dioxide to produce carbon dioxide-enriched overhead vapor and Chydrocarbon-enriched bottoms liquid such that the hydrogen sulfide is rejected with the overhead vapor. Power consumption reductions may be achieved by incorporating a heat pump cycle using carbon dioxide vapor as working fluid to provide at least a part of the refrigeration duty and using a side reboiler to reduce the bottom reboiler duty. Where the bottoms liquid is further processed to produce 'lighter' and 'heavier' hydrocarbon fractions, the process enables optimization of upgrading crude oil on the basis of API gravity, Reid Vapor pressure and/or viscosity.

Process for recovering hydrocarbons from crude carbon dioxide fluid

In a process for separating at least one 'heavy' impurity such as hydrogen sulfide from crude carbon dioxide comprising significant quantities of at least one 'light' impurity such as non-condensable gases, involving at least one heat pump cycle using carbon dioxide-containing fluid from the process as the working fluid, the &#x201c;light&#x201d; impurity is removed from the crude carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide is subsequently recovered from the removed &#x201c;light&#x201d; impurity, thereby improving overall carbon dioxide recovery and efficiency in terms of energy consumption.

Helium can be recovered from nitrogen-rich natural gas at high pressure with low helium loss by cryogenic distillation of the natural gas after pre-treatment of the gas to remove incompatible impurities and then recovery of natural gas liquid (NGL) from the pre-treated gas by distillation. Overall power consumption may be reduced, particularly if the feed to the helium recovery column system is at least substantially condensed by indirect heat exchange against a first portion of nitrogen-enriched bottoms liquid at first pressure, and a second portion of nitrogen-enriched bottoms liquid at a second pressure that is different from the first pressure.

Treatment of nitrogen-rich natural gas streams

Systems and methods are provided for recovering helium from a feed comprising helium, carbon dioxide, and at least one of nitrogen and methane. The feed is separated in a first separator to form helium-enriched stream and a CO-enriched stream. The helium-enriched stream is separated in a pressure swing adsorption unit to form a helium-rich product stream and a helium-lean stream. At least a portion of the helium-lean stream is recycled to the first separator with the feed. In some embodiments, a membrane separation unit is used to enhance helium recovery.

Helium recovery from streams containing helium, carbon dioxide, and at least one of nitrogen and methane

Systems and methods are provided for recovering helium from a feed comprising helium, carbon dioxide, and at least one intermediate component having a volatility between those of helium and carbon dioxide. In particular, processes of the present invention comprise separating the carbon dioxide and the components of intermediate volatility from the helium at a temperature greater than &#x2212;82.7&#xb0; C. to form a helium-rich product stream, wherein the concentration of at least one of the intermediate components in the helium-rich product stream is lower than its concentration in the feed stream, and wherein at least part of the separation is effected by contacting a vapor with a liquid.

Systems and methods for recovering helium from feed streams containing carbon dioxide

NOmay be removed from a carbon dioxide feed gas comprising NOand at least one 'non-condensable' gas as contaminants by passing the feed gas at a first elevated pressure through a first adsorption system that selectively adsorbs at least NOto produce at least substantially NO-free carbon dioxide gas. The adsorption system is at least partially regenerated using a carbon dioxide-rich gas recovered from the substantially NO-free carbon dioxide gas after purification. The invention has particular application in removing NOand water from flue gas generated by oxyfuel combustion.

Recycle TSA regen gas to boiler for oxyfuel operations

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Surrey, United Kingdom

Paul Higginbotham