Selective adsorption process
AssigneeMonsanto Company
InventorGeorge M. Intille
Life of this patent
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Abstract
There is provided an improved, environmentally acceptable adsorption process for the recovery of hydrogen and normally liquid hydrocarbon from a feed gas mixture by utilizing a membrane permeator unit selectively permeable to hydrogen to recover a permeated hydrogen gas from the purge gas obtained from the regeneration of a selective adsorption unit, recycling the permeated hydrogen gas to a guard adsorber of the selective adsorption unit as purge gas and blending said gas with the feed gas mixture for recovery of normally liquid hydrocarbon and of the added proportion of hydrogen as purified hydrogen product.
Claims27
In a selective adsorption process wherein a feed gas mixture containing hydrogen, at least one heavier gas and vapors of at least one normally liquid hydrocarbon is directed to a guard adsorber of a selective adsorption unit, vapors of normally liquid hydrocarbons are adsorbed by said guard adsorber, said feed gas mixture substantially freed of said vapors is thereafter directed to a selective adsorber of said selective adsorption unit, a hydrogen product is obtained from said selective adsorption unit and a first purge gas comprising hydrogen is obtained from said selective adsorption unit, the improvement comprising directing said first purge gas to a membrane permeator selectively permeable to hydrogen, recovering from said permeator permeated gas comprising hydrogen, sequentially directing said permeated gas to said guard adsorber, purging said guard adsorber with said permeated gas of at least a portion of said adsorbed vapors, blending the resulting second purge gas from the guard adsorber with said feed gas mixture and recovering at least a portion of said normally liquid hydrocarbon.
In a selective adsorption process wherein a feed gas mixture containing hydrogen, at least one heavier gas and vapors of at least one normally liquid hydrocarbon is directed to a guard adsorber of a selective adsorption unit, said vapors are adsorbed by said guard adsorber, said feed gas mixture substantially freed of said vapors is thereafter directed to a selective adsorber of said selective adsorption unit, a hydrogen product is obtained from said selective adsorption unit and at least one desorbed heavier gas and purge gas are joined in a regenerating gas obtained from said selective adsorption unit, the improvement comprising directing said regenerating gas to a membrane permeator selectively permeable to hydrogen, recovering from said permeator a permeated gas comprising hydrogen, sequentially directing said permeated gas to said guard adsorber, purging said guard adsorber with said permeated gas of at least a portion of said adsorbed vapors, blending the resulting second purge gas from the guard adsorber with said feed gas mixture and recovering at least a portion of said normally liquid hydrocarbon.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.