Gas separation – Means within gas stream for conducting concentrate to collector
Patent
1987-02-27
1988-04-12
Spitzer, Robert
Gas separation
Means within gas stream for conducting concentrate to collector
55 58, 55 62, 55 75, 55179, 55387, B01D 5304
Patent
active
047371676
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for separating a gas mixture in which the objective product gas is recovered using the gas mixture containing a plurality of components as material gas by a pressure difference adsorption method adapted to selectively adsorb impurity components in the material gas with adsorbents.
Specifically, the present invention is suitable for the case where impurity components are removed out of various material gases to recover product gas abundant in argon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrocarbons having the lower boiling point, etc. Background Art
Methods and apparatus for separating a gas mixture by a pressure difference adsorption method have been proposed in, for example, Japanese Patent Publication Official Gazette No. 42-26164, No. 57-42367 and No. 57-50722.
Product gas is recovered by making use of a pressure difference adsorption unit which includes adsorption towers each filled with an adsorbent, and in which pressurized adsorptive operation and depressurized desorptive operation are repeated in turn as basic operations. There is arranged a single pressure difference adsorption unit including a plurality of adsorption towers, and material gases having the same composition and the same purity are introduced into the respective adsorption towers in parallel.
Although it is desired to recover product gas of high purity, the length of an adsorption zone in the adsorption tower is enlarged with increasing purity of the gas product. Therefore, an output amount of the product gas per one cycle was reduced and recovery of the product gas was lowered. Particularly, in case of recovering product gas of higher purity, recovery thereof was greatly lowered.
As operation for increasing pressure in the adsorption tower to carry out the pressurized adsorptive operation, there are known a method utilizing material gas and another method utilizing movement of gas remaining in the adsorption tower after completion of the pressurized adsorptive operation. However, because the adsorption zone was largely disturbed due to the increased pressure in the adsorption tower, an output amount of the product gas could not be increased.
In case of recovering argon from material gas with composition of argon 70% and nitrogen 30%, separation of such a gas mixture made by the above-mentioned prior art resulted in argon purity in the product gas as high as 95% and recovery of argon was 63% at maximum. It was impossible to obtain recovered product gas with argon purity exceedingly 95%.
Furthermore, in case of recovering oxygen using air as material gas, oxygen purity in the product gas was 94% and recovery of oxygen had a low level of 67% at maximum.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for separating a gas mixture that are capable of recovering product gas at high purity.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for separating a gas mixture that are capable of recovering product gas at high recovery.
First feature of the present invention is in a method for separating a gas mixture comprising; a first stage pressure difference adsorption cycle step in which pressurized adsorptive operation and depressurized desorptive operation are carried out in turn to separate material gas so that refined gas is recovered and exhaust gas released from the depressurized desorptive operation is discharged out of the system; second and subsequent pressure difference adsorption cycle steps in each of which pressurized adsorptive operation and depressurized desorptive operation are carried out in turn to separate the refined gas so that condensed refined gas is recovered and exhaust gas released from the depressurized desorptive operation is discharged out of the system; and a step for recovering the final condensed refined gas as product gas.
Second feature of the present invention is in an apparatus for separating a gas mixture comprising; a material gas processing pressure difference a
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Nogita Shunsuke
Ohtani Misayo
Someya Kazuo
Tomomura Masaomi
Hitachi , Ltd.
Spitzer Robert
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