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US 4,957,524 AGranted
Air separation process with improved reboiler liquid cleaning circuit
AssigneeUnion Carbide Corporation
InventorsRavindra F. Pahade, John H. Ziemer, John K. Howell
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Abstract
A cryogenic rectification method wherein liquid from a top condenser-reboiler is cleaned of higher boiling impurities by passage through an adsorbent bed and returned to the condenser-reboiler, wherein the flow back to the condenser-reboiler is driven by combination with density-reducing vapor.
Claims13
A method for cryogenic separation comprising:
- (A) separating a feed comprising nitrogen, oxygen and higher boiling impurities, in a column having a top condenser-reboiler, into nitrogen-richer vapor and oxygen-enriched liquid containing higher boiling impurities;
- (B) passing oxygen-enriched liquid from the column to the top condenser-reboiler;
- (C) passing oxygen-enriched liquid from the top condenser-reboiler through an adsorbent bed, transferring higher boiling impurities from the liquid to the adsorbent, and returning resulting cleaned liquid to the top condenser-reboiler;
- and
- (D) driving the liquid back to the top condenser-reboiler, at least in part, by combining the liquid with vapor to reduce the density of the stream passing back to the top condenser-reboiler.
2 more elements
A method for cryogenic separation comprising:
- (A) separating a feed comprising nitrogen, oxygen and higher boiling impurities, in a column having a top condenser-reboiler, into nitrogen-richer vapor and oxygen-enriched liquid containing higher boiling impurities;
- (B) passing oxygen-enriched liquid from the column to the top condenser-reboiler;
- (C) passing oxygen-enriched liquid from the top condenser-reboiler through an adsorbent bed, transferring higher boiling impurities from the liquid to the adsorbent, and returning resulting cleaned liquid to the top condenser-reboiler;
- and
- (D) driving the liquid back to the top condenser-reboiler, at least in part, by vaporizing some of this liquid to reduce the density of the stream passing back to the to condenser-reboiler.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.