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US 6,601,407 B1Granted
Cryogenic air separation with two phase feed air turboexpansion
AssigneePraxair Technology, Inc.
InventorsSabri Deniz, Gregory William Henzler, Dante Patrick Bonaquist
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Abstract
A method for cryogenic air separation wherein at least a portion of the feed air to the cryogenic air separation plant is partially condensed and the resulting two-phase feed air stream is turboexpanded to produce refrigeration and a resulting two-phase feed air stream, which has a liquid portion less than that of the input two-phase feed air stream to the turboexpander, prior to being passed into the cryogenic air separation plant.
Claims8
A method for producing at least one product by the cryogenic rectification of feed air comprising:
- (A) partially condensing a flow of feed air to produce a first two-phase flow of feed air having a liquid phase portion which is not more than 99 percent of said first two-phase flow of feed air;
- (B) passing said first two-phase flow of feed air to a turboexpander, and turboexpanding the said first two-phase flow of feed air in the turboexpander to produce a second two-phase flow of feed air having a liquid phase portion which is less than the liquid phase portion of the first two-phase flow of feed air;
- (C) passing the second two-phase flow of feed air to a cryogenic air separation plant comprising at least one column;
- and
- (D) separating the feed air by cryogenic rectification in the cryogenic air separation plant to produce at least one product.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.