Fluent material handling – with receiver or receiver coacting mea – Processes – Filling dispensers
Patent
1998-06-26
1999-12-28
Douglas, Steven O.
Fluent material handling, with receiver or receiver coacting mea
Processes
Filling dispensers
141 20, 206 07, B65B 104
Patent
active
060067977
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a method and vessel for the storage of gas, namely acetylene, and to the use of carbonaceous adsorbents for storing acetylene.
Acetylene is used in industry as a fuel gas for gas welding and gas cutting operations, in particular, but it has the disadvantage of being very unstable. If an ignition source is present, pure acetylene under a pressure as low as 1.4 bar decomposes violently. Acetylene is not therefore stored as an uninterrupted homogeneous gaseous phase under pressure in a gas cylinder.
The universally used commercial method of storing acetylene is to dissolve the acetylene in a suitable solvent, typically acetone, to lower its activity (i.e. its chemical reactivity). The resulting solution of acetylene is absorbed in a solid porous mass within a pressure vessel, typically a gas cylinder, in order to inhibit the decomposition of acetylene. The mass typically has pores of a size in the range of 50 to 250 nm. With this known method, using acetone as the solvent, acetylene gas cylinders have a limiting safety pressure of 18.7 bar absolute at 15.degree. C. according to United Kingdom Governmental regulations. The main disadvantages of this dissolved acetylene storage system are its inability to provide acetylene at high flow rates, particularly when most of the acetylene has been discharged from the cylinder, and the discharge of some acetone vapour together with the acetylene. Other disadvantages of the system include a limited storage capacity in view of the limit on the maximum permitted pressure, a rapid decrease in pressure with decreasing ambient temperature, and no capability for either bulk storage or bulk transportation, unless in cylinders that are manifolded together.
It is therefore not surprising that alternative acetylene storage methods have been proposed. For example, as long ago as 1964, French patent No 1 417 235 disclosed utilising cylinders for the storage of acetylene that contain an solid adsorbent for acetylene. No specific adsorbent for this purpose was, however, disclosed in French patent No 1 417 235. Further, although there is some sparse experimental data relating to the adsorption of acetylene at pressures up to about 1 bar, there is no experimental data at all for adsorption at elevated. Accordingly, no practical use has been made of solid adsorbents in the storage of acetylene at elevated pressure.
EP-A-0 467 486 discloses specific activated carbon adsorbents for the storage of methane. There is a suggestion that the general class of adsorbents disclosed therein can be used for the storage of acetylene. No specific example of an adsorbent for this purpose is, however, given.
There is, thus, a need in the art for specific adsorbents that are particularly suited to the storage of acetylene at elevated pressure. In investigating adsorbents for this purpose, we have found that the criteria for the selection of a suitable adsorbent are relatively complex and cannot be derived from the state of the art.
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of storing acetylene at elevated pressure, comprising charging with acetylene at elevated pressure a pressure vessel containing carbonaceous adsorbent able reversibly to adsorb acetylene, in which the adsorbent has: /cm.sup.3.
According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a pressure vessel for the storage, transport and delivery of acetylene under pressure, containing carbonaceous adsorbent able reversibly to adsorb acetylene, in which the adsorbent has: /cm.sup.3.
According to a third aspect of the present invention there is provided the use, for storage under pressure of acetylene, of a carbonaceous adsorbent able reversibly toadsorb acetylene, the carbonaceous adsorbent having: /cm.sup.3.
Alternatively, in the said three aspects of the present invention the total of the specific micropore and specific mesopore volumes is equal to or greater than 1.0 cm.sup.3 /g, and the specific volume of pores having an effective diameter size in the range of
REFERENCES:
patent: 5094736 (1992-03-01), Greenbank
patent: 5632788 (1997-05-01), Rabren
Bulow Martin
Dougill Silvia Beatriz
Parkyns Norman Douglas
Sajik Wasyl Michael
Douglas Steven O.
Pace Salvatore P.
The BOC Group plc
Von Neida Philip H.
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