Helium recovery
AssigneePraxair Technology, Inc.
InventorsMohamed Safdar Allie Baksh, Scot Eric Jaynes, Bernard Thomas Neu, James Smolarek, Mark Thomas Emley
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Abstract
A gas recovery system comprising a source of gas having a preselected concentration of a desired component (9), at least one application (1) that adds impurities to said gas, and at least one an adsorption system (6) that purifies said gas to produce a purified gas for re-use in application (1), wherein said at least one adsorption system includes at least one adsorbent bed (A) having at least three layers of adsorbents. A recovery process is also disclosed.
Claims24
A gas recovery system comprising a source of gas having a preselected concentration of a desired component, at least one application that adds impurities to said gas, and at least one adsorption system that purifies said gas to produce a purified gas for re-use in said application, wherein said at least one adsorption system includes at least one adsorbent bed (A) having at least three layers of adsorbents, and wherein a waste stream generated by the at least one adsorption system can be selectively recycled to the same at least one adsorption system until a predetermined upper limit of waste impurities in said waste stream is reached;
- and wherein said waste stream can be treated prior to recycle to said same at least one adsorption system when said waste impurities are above said predetermined upper limit such that waste impurities in said waste stream can be removed until a level below said predetermined upper limit is reached.
A gas recovery process comprising the steps of:
- a) providing gas having a preselected concentration of a desired component to an application;
- b) adding impurities to said gas in said application to produce an impure gas having a lower concentration of said desired component;
- c) passing said impure gas to at least one adsorption system that purifies said gas to produce a purified gas having said preselected concentration of said desired component for re-use in said application, wherein said at least one adsorption system includes at least one adsorbent bed (A) having at least three layers of adsorbents;
- and
- d) selectively recycling waste gas generated by the at least one adsorption system to the same at least one adsorption system until a predetermined upper limit of waste impurities in said waste stream is reached;
- and treating said waste stream prior to recycle to said same at least one adsorption system when said waste impurities are above said predetermined upper limit such that waste impurities in said waste stream are removed until a level below said predetermined upper limit is reached.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.