Plant and method for liquefying gas
AssigneeL'Air Liquide, Societe Anonyme pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude
InventorsPierre Barjhoux, Fabien Durand, Franck Delcayre
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Plant and method for liquefying a flow of gas, having a cooling circuit that includes at least one exchanger (5) for cooling the gas, and at least one expansion turbine (6) which is mounted on a rotary axle which is supported by at least one bearing (7) of the gas-static type, the cooling circuit (2) also including a pressurized gas injection conduit that is configured to supply pressurized gas to the bearing (7) in order to provide support to the rotary axle, the plant (1) further includes a recovery conduit (9) that is configured to recycle at least a portion of the gas which has been used to support the rotary axle of the bearing (7) with a view to liquefying the gas.
Claims11
A plant for liquefying a flow of hydrogen gas, comprising:
- a cooling circuit that is provided with an upstream end intended to be connected to a source of a pressurized gas to be liquefied, a downstream end intended to be connected to a component for using the liquefied gas, in between the upstream and downstream ends, a set of components intended to liquefy said pressurized gas and that comprises at least one heat exchanger for cooling the pressurized gas, at least one expansion turbine mounted on a rotary shaft supported by at least one gas-static bearing, and a pressurized gas injection conduit having an upstream end intended to receive the pressurized gas supplied by the source and a downstream end connected to the bearing to support the rotary shaft with the pressurized gas;
- and
- a recovery conduit for recovering a gas that has been used in the bearing, the recovery conduit comprising an upstream end connected to the bearing, a downstream end connected to the cooling circuit between the upstream and downstream ends of the cooling circuit in order to recycle and liquefy at least some of the gas that has been used to support the rotary shaft of the bearing, the downstream end of the recovery conduit being connected to an outlet of the at least one expansion turbine.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.