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AssigneeL'Air Liquide, Societe Anonyme a Directoire et Conseil de Surveillance pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude
InventorsJean-Renaud Brugerolle, Alain Guillard, Bernard Saulnier, Patrick Le Bot, Jean-Marc Tsevery, Alain Fossier, Jean-Luc Bretesche, Bernard Darredeau
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In order to boost production of a product (A) of an existing separation plant (X, 1), an additional plant (Y) is integrated with the original plant so as to enable the original plant (X) to produce more of that product (A+B), whilst the additional plant may or may not necessarily itself produce the same product directly. For example, air is separated in a first unit, which is an existing double column distillation plant, to produce an oxygen rich fluid. So as to increase the production of the oxygen rich fluid, a second unit, which is a wash column (15), is integrated with the first unit. Air (41) is separated in the single nitrogen wash column (15) to remove oxygen and gaseous nirogen (42) is produced at the top of the column. The wash column is fed with liquid nitrogen (39) from the high pressure column (25) of an existing air separation unit.
A process for increasing the amount of at least one product produced by a first unit for treating at least one fluid mixture by a method selected from the group consisting of pressurization, mixing in a mixing column, expansion, distillation, liquefaction, adsorption, permeation and combinations thereof, the method comprising sending at least one fluid mixture to the first unit and removing at least one product from the first unit, said product having a different composition from said at least one fluid mixture and optionally, at least one of a different state and a different pressure from said at least one fluid mixture, wherein the first unit alone before integrating a second unit to the first unit produces an amount A moles/h of a first product, the process comprising integrating the second unit with the first unit, said integration comprising sending at least one of (a) energy from the first unit to the second unit, (b) at lest one fluid stream from the first unit to the second unit, (c) energy from the second unit to the first unit and (d) at least one fluid stream from the second unit to the first unit, wherein said second unit treats at least one fluid mixture by a method selected from the group consisting of pressurization, expansion, warming, cooling, distillation, mixing, liquefaction, adsorption, permeation and combinations thereof such that the first unit produces an amount of first product A+B moles/h, said amount of first product withdrawn from the first unit and optionally from the second unit is increased to C moles/h, C being greater than A, and the amount C comprising at least one fluid stream withdrawn from the first unit and optionally from the second unit.
An air separation apparatus having a first unit comprising at least a high pressure column and a low pressure column and optionally at least one of an intermediate pressure column and a mixing column, which are thermally linked, means for producing a stream containing more than 20 mol. % oxygen from a second unit including means for cryogenic distillation of air, means for sending at least part of the stream containing more than 20 mol. % oxygen to at least one of (a) the high pressure column, (b) the low pressure column, (c) the intermediate pressure column and (d) the mixing column, means for sending cooled and purified air at least to the high pressure column and to the second unit and means for removing an oxygen enriched product from at least one unit of the apparatus.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.