Nitrogen generating device and nitrogen generating method
AssigneeL'Air Liquide, Societe Anonyme pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude
InventorsKenji Hirose, Daisuke Nagata
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A nitrogen generating device comprises: a main heat exchanger; a nitrogen distillation column; at least one nitrogen condenser; a compressor; an expansion turbine; a rotation control unit for controlling rotation with respect to a rotating shaft connecting the compressor and the expansion turbine; a pressure measuring unit for measuring a pressure value of product nitrogen gas; and an optimum rotational speed calculation command unit which inputs the pressure value measured by the pressure measuring unit into a pre-installed rotational speed calculation function to calculate the rotational speed of the rotating shaft, and issues a command to the rotation control unit.
Claims7
A nitrogen generating device comprising:
- a main heat exchanger into which feed air is introduced;
- a nitrogen distillation column having a lower portion into which the feed air discharged from the main heat exchanger is introduced;
- a first nitrogen condenser configured to condense a first nitrogen gas discharged from a column top portion of the nitrogen distillation column;
- a second nitrogen condenser configured to condense a second nitrogen gas discharged from the column top portion of the nitrogen distillation column;
- a compressor in fluid communication with a top portion of the first nitrogen condenser, wherein the compressor is configured to receive a first gas discharged from the top portion of the first nitrogen condenser;
- a first gas recycling pipeline configured to cause the first gas compressed by the compressor to pass through a portion of the main heat exchanger and configured to introduce the same into the lower portion of the nitrogen distillation column;
- an expansion turbine into which a second gas discharged from a top portion of the second nitrogen condenser is introduced after passing through a portion of the main heat exchanger;
- a second gas discharge pipeline configured to cause the second gas used by the expansion turbine to pass through the main heat exchanger and be expelled;
- a rotation control unit configured to control rotation with respect to a rotating shaft connecting the compressor and the expansion turbine;
- a product nitrogen gas extraction pipeline configured to cause a product nitrogen gas discharged from the column top portion or an upper distillation portion of the nitrogen distillation column to pass through the main heat exchanger, and further configured to extract the product nitrogen gas from the main heat exchanger;
- a pressure measuring unit configured to measure a pressure value in an arbitrarily defined part of the nitrogen distillation column or to measure a pressure value of the product nitrogen gas;
- and
- an optimum rotational speed calculation command unit configured to use the pressure value measured by the pressure measuring unit in a pre-installed rotational speed calculation function to calculate a rotational speed of the rotating shaft, and configured to issue a command to the rotation control unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.