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AssigneeThe BOC Group, Inc.
InventorsRavi Jain, Julian Richard Dean, Robert Bruce Grant, Naum Perelman, Paul Alan Stockman, Neil Condon, Andrew John Harpham
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A method is described for recovering a noble gas, such as xenon or krypton, from a first gas mixture comprising a plurality of components, one of which is the noble gas and the others are typically helium and/or nitrogen, argon, and relatively light fluorocarbons. The gas mixture is first conveyed to a gas chromatography column for separating the noble gas from the other components of the gas mixture. As the noble gas travels relatively slowly through the column, the other components are exhaust from the column before the relatively slow noble gas. Following the exhaust of these other components, a purge gas is supplied to the column to flush the noble gas therefrom. A second gas mixture comprising the noble gas and the purge gas is conveyed from the column to a membrane separator to separate the second gas mixture into a noble gas-rich gas stream and a purge gas-rich gas stream, which may be recirculated back to the column for re-use.
A method of recovering a noble gas from a gas mixture comprising the noble gas, the method comprising the steps of:
A method of recovering a noble gas from a first gas mixture comprising a plurality of components, one of which is the noble gas, the method comprising the steps of:
Apparatus for recovering a noble gas from a gas mixture comprising a plurality of components, one of which is the noble gas, the apparatus comprising a gas chromatography column for separating the components of the gas mixture and sequentially exhausting the components therefrom, and means for collecting the noble gas exhaust from the gas chromatography column.
Apparatus for recovering a noble gas from a first gas mixture comprising a plurality of components, one of which is the noble gas, the apparatus comprising first separating means for separating the noble gas from the other components of the first gas mixture and exhausting the other components of the gas mixture;
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.