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US 4,574,006 AGranted
Process to produce a krypton-xenon concentrate from a liquid feed
AssigneeUnion Carbide Corporation
InventorHarry Cheung
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A process which produces a krypton-xenon concentrate from a liquid feed while also producing a liquid product substantially free of rare gases. The process employs an integral heat pump circuit to carry out the separation in an energy-efficient manner.
Claims16
A process for the production of a krypton-xenon concentrate from a liquid feed, while also recovering a liquid product substantially free of rare gases, comprising enabling avoidance of excessive complication(s) occasioned by the handling of oxygen by the steps of:
- (A) providing a feed liquid comprising oxygen, krypton and xenon to a reboiling zone to form a reboiling liquid;
- (B) partially vaporizing the reboiling liquid to produce a vapor, and a liquid krypton-xenon concentrate;
- (C) recovering krypton-xenon concentrate;
- (D) passing the vapor against downflowing reflux liquid in a column;
- (E) stripping krypton and xenon from the vapor to the reflux liquid to produce a lean vapor and a richer liquid;
- (F) passing the richer liquid to the reboiling zone to form part of the reboiling liquid;
- (G) withdrawing lean vapor from the column;
- (H) heating the withdrawn lean vapor;
- (I) compressing the heated lean vapor;
- (J) cooling the compressed lean vapor by indirect heat exchange with the heating lean vapor;
- (K) condensing the cooled lean vapor in the reboiling zone by indirect heat exchange with the partially vaporizing reboiling liquid to produce a lean liquid;
- (L) passing a portion of the lean liquid to the column to form said reflux liquid;
- and
- (M) recovering a portion of lean liquid as liquid product substantially free of rare gases.
11 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.