Production of high purity argon
AssigneeAir Products and Chemicals, Inc.
InventorsJeffrey A. Hopkins, Roger M. McGuinness, Rakesh Agrawal, Steven L. Feldman
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Abstract
A process for making high purity argon is disclosed in which crude argon containing less than about 0.8 mol % oxygen is recovered from air in a cryogenic distillation system, the crude argon is purified by removing oxygen in a getter system, and other impurities are removed by cryogenic distillation to yield a high purity argon product. The crude argon purification system is heat integrated with the main cryogenic air separation system. High purity argon can be produced at argon recoveries greater than 90% by utilizing structured packing in at least a portion of the argon sidearm column.
Claims17
A process for the production of high purity argon comprising:
- (a) recovering an argon-enriched sidestream from a low pressure column of a cryogenic air separation distillation system comprising a high pressure column, said low pressure column, an argon sidearm column, and a main heat exchanger;
- (b) passing said argon-enriched sidestream into said argon sidearm column and withdrawing therefrom a crude argon stream containing less than about 0.8 mol % oxygen;
- and
- (c) passing said crude argon stream into a final purification system comprising a combination of a getter system for the removal of oxygen by chemical reaction with a metal-containing getter catalyst and an argon purification distillation column for the removal of impurities other than oxygen, and withdrawing from said final purification system a stream of said high purity argon.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.