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US 4,345,925 AGranted
Process for the production of high pressure oxygen gas
AssigneeUnion Carbide Corporation
InventorHarry Cheung
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Oxygen gas is produced at greater than atmospheric pressure by separating air into oxygen-rich and nitrogen-rich fractions in a distillation column, removing the oxygen as liquid and pumping it to the desired pressure and subsequently vaporizing the pumped liquid oxygen by means of energy absorbed from a recirculation argon containing fluid.
Claims7
A process for the production of oxygen gas at greater than atmospheric pressure comprising the steps of:
- (a) introducing cleaned, cooled air into a distillation column;
- (b) separating said air into oxygen-rich and nitrogen-rich fractions in said column;
- (c) removing from said column at least a portion of said oxygen-rich fraction as liquid;
- (d) pumping said liquid oxygen-rich portion to the desired pressure of at least about 600 psia;
- (e) vaporizing said liquid oxygen-rich portion to oxygen gas at said desired pressure by indirect heat exchange with an argon containing fluid, recirculating in an essentially closed loop, said fluid comprising from 50 to 100 mole percent argon and from 0 to 50 mole percent oxygen;
- (f) recovering said oxygen gas at said desired pressure;
- (g) removing from said column at least a portion of a nitrogen-rich fraction as gas;
- (h) condensing said gaseous nitrogen-rich portion by indirect heat exchange with said recirculating argon containing fluid;
- and
- (i) returning said condensed nitrogen-rich portion back to said column, wherein said condensed nitrogen-rich portion is returned to said column in an amount sufficient to make up the nitrogen liquid reflux associated with said removed liquid oxygen-rich portion.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.