Refrigeration – Cryogenic treatment of gas or gas mixture – Liquefaction
Patent
1996-09-06
1998-09-01
Bennett, Henry A.
Refrigeration
Cryogenic treatment of gas or gas mixture
Liquefaction
62 501, 62430, 62903, F25J 500
Patent
active
057995060
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method of cooling, chilling or refrigerating a product with the aid of the cold content of a condensed gas, referred to hereinafter as cooling, wherein the product is caused to pass through at least one product cooling heat-exchanger, preferably in a gas or liquid state. The invention also relates to an arrangement for use when carrying out the method.
Many large gas consumers have the gas delivered in a condensed state. When the gas is to be used, the gas is normally vaporized in an air evaporator. The use of an air evaporator results in the loss of the cold content of the condensed gas. In order to be able to recover the cold that is at present lost in this way, there is needed flexible and inexpensive equipment which can be used for cooling a number of different products, preferably in a gas or liquid state, without the products being frozen. Neither should the equipment used require separate drive means, such as pumps or fans, or other energy consuming units, since all supplied energy that must be chilled off contributes to increasing the cooling losses. The equipment shall also be able to operate without the use of an additional heat transfer medium of low freezing point that is cooled by the condensed gas and in turn cools the product, since such means requires the use of a pump or like device which supplies energy to the heat transfer device and therewith reduces the cold content thereof.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The main object of the present invention is to provide a method and an arrangement for utilizing the cold content of condensed gas highly efficiently with the aid of simple and inexpensive standard components which do not require the use of pumps, fans or other energy supplying equipment and which will eliminate the risk of the product to be cooled being frozen.
The invention is based on the understanding that this object can be achieved by cooling the product with the aid of the cold gas that is obtained when vapourizing, or evaporating, the condensed gas, and by using the gas heated in the cooling process to effectively vapourize the condensed gas, and by vapourizing the condensed gas and cooling the product in separate heat-exchangers of standard type. Naturally, one requirement of the invention is that the temperature of the product to be cooled lies above the boiling point of the condensed gas used.
According to the present invention, the particular characteristics of a method of the kind defined in the first paragraph reside in vapourizing the condensed gas in at least one evaporation heat-exchanger, delivering the evaporated or vapourized gas to the product cooling heat-exchanger to cool the product therein, and by returning the gas heated by the product in the product cooling heat-exchanger back to the evaporator heat-exchanger to vapourize the condensed gas therein.
Thus, according to the invention, product cooling is achieved with the aid of the condensed gas after the gas has been vapourized, while also using the gas as a heat transfer medium. The risk of the product becoming frozen is minimized by virtue of the fact that the condensed gas does not come into direct contact with the product. Furthermore, as the vapourized gas merely cools the product indirectly, through the medium of the partition walls in the heat-exchanger, the gas and the product never come into contact with one another. The heat-exchanger used is conveniently comprised of standard components of co-flow, contraflow or cross-flow type. As a result of the separate components, the components may in themselves be optimized to achieve an effective process, which as a result of the use of standard components can be achieved at low cost.
For the purpose of further improving the recovery of the cold content of the condensed gas, the product is cooled suitably in at least two series-connected product-cooling heat-exchangers, wherein the gas vapourized in the evaporation heat-exchanger is delivered to one of said heat-exchangers as the cooling medium, or
REFERENCES:
patent: 3712073 (1973-01-01), Arenson
patent: 4170115 (1979-10-01), Ooka et al.
patent: 4224802 (1980-09-01), Ooka
Ekeblad Per Olof
Johansson Sven-Ake
AGA AB
Bennett Henry A.
O'Connor Pamela A.
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