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US 11,952,270 B2Granted
Method and system for purification of helium using cryogenic, membrane, and adsorption techniques
AssigneesL'Air Liquide, Societe Anonyme pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude, Air Liquide Advanced Technologies U.S. LLC
InventorsPaul Terrien, Pierre-Philippe Guerif, Vincent Follaca, Alain Guillard, Youssef Tazi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and system for purification of helium and CO2 from a stream containing at least Helium, CO2, nitrogen or methane uses a combination of cryogenic, membrane and adsorption technologies.
Claims15
A process for purifying a pressurized feed stream containing at least 30 mol % CO2 and at most 10 mol % helium, comprising the steps of:
- partially condensing the pressurized feed stream in a heat exchanger to obtain a helium-rich gas stream and a CO2-rich liquid stream;
- separating the helium-rich gas stream in a gas separation membrane-based separation unit to obtain a first permeate stream and a first residue stream;
- compressing the first permeate stream, or a fraction thereof, to obtain a compressed permeate stream;
- introducing at least a fraction of the compressed permeate stream into the heat exchanger at which the introduced at least one fraction of the compressed stream is partially condensed to produce a gaseous permeate stream and a liquid permeate stream;
- and purifying at least a fraction of the gaseous permeate stream to obtain a purified helium stream containing at least 70 mol % helium.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.