The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 21, 2019
Filed:
Sep. 05, 2017
Vijayaraghavan S. Chakravarthy, Williamsville, NY (US);
Hanfei Tuo, East Amherst, NY (US);
Maulik R. Shelat, Williamsville, NY (US);
James R. Dray, Buffalo, NY (US);
Nick J. Degenstein, East Amherst, NY (US);
Vijayaraghavan S. Chakravarthy, Williamsville, NY (US);
Hanfei Tuo, East Amherst, NY (US);
Maulik R. Shelat, Williamsville, NY (US);
James R. Dray, Buffalo, NY (US);
Nick J. Degenstein, East Amherst, NY (US);
PRAXAIR TECHNOLOGY, INC., Danbury, CT (US);
Abstract
A system and method for recovery of rare gases such as neon, helium, xenon, and krypton in an air separation unit is provided. The rare gas recovery system comprises a non-condensable stripping column linked in a heat transfer relationship with a xenon-krypton column via an auxiliary condenser-reboiler. The non-condensable stripping column produces a rare gas containing overhead that is directed to the auxiliary condenser-reboiler where most of the neon is captured in a non-condensable vent stream that is further processed to produce a crude neon vapor stream that contains greater than about 50% mole fraction of neon with the overall neon recovery exceeding 95%. The xenon-krypton column further receives two streams of liquid oxygen from the lower pressure column and the rare gas containing overhead from the non-condensable stripping column and produces a crude xenon and krypton liquid stream and an oxygen-rich overhead.