Method for producing high purity hydrogen
AssigneeAir Products and Chemicals, Inc.
InventorsKamlesh Ghodasara, Maulik R. Shelat, Paul Higginbotham, Shubhra Jyoti Bhadra, Timothy C. Golden
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Abstract
A hydrogen feed stream comprising one or more impurities selected from the group consisting of nitrogen, argon, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water, is contacted with liquid hydrogen in a cryogenic wash column (CWC) process that produces pure hydrogen with high overall recovery. The waste liquid stream leaving the CWC may be used to improve the performance of upstream hydrogen processing steps.
Claims9
A process for the purification of a hydrogen feed stream comprising hydrogen and one or more impurities selected from the group consisting of nitrogen, argon, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and water, the process comprising:
- separating a crude hydrogen stream by an adsorption process using a plurality of adsorbent beds to produce the hydrogen feed stream and an impurities-enriched tail gas stream;
- cooling the hydrogen feed stream to produce a cooled hydrogen stream;
- and
- contacting the cooled hydrogen stream with a liquid hydrogen wash stream counter-currently to produce a pure hydrogen stream depleted in the one or more impurities and a liquid hydrogen effluent stream enriched in the one or more impurities;
- wherein the adsorption process comprises a counter-current purge step during which a purge gas is introduced to remove one or more crude impurities selected from nitrogen, argon, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and water from the plurality of adsorbent beds;
- and
- wherein the purge gas comprises a stream derived from the liquid hydrogen effluent stream.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.